by Anthology
They started off slowly up the trail, Mercer carrying the folded blanket, and Anina wearing the fur jacket. They soon came upon the smoldering fire that marked the other party's night encampment. The men were, Mercer judged, perhaps a mile or so ahead of them.
They continued on, walking slowly, for they did not want to overtake the slow-traveling men ahead. The look of the country, what they could see of it in the darkness, was unchanged. The trail seemed bending steadily to the right, and after a time they came to the bank of a river which the trail followed. It was a broad stream, perhaps a quarter of a mile across, with a considerable current sweeping down to the sea.
They kept to the trail along the river bank for nearly another hour. Then Anina abruptly halted, pulling Mercer partly behind a tree trunk.
"Another fire," she whispered. "They stop again."
They could see the glow of the fire, close by the river bank among the trees. Very cautiously they approached and soon made out the vague outlines of a boat moored to the bank. It seemed similar to the one in which they had come down the bayous from the Great City, only slightly larger.
"Other men," whispered Anina. "From Lone City."
Mercer's heart sank. A party from the Lone City--more of Tao's men to join those he had set free! All his fine plans were swept away. The men would all go up to the Lone City now in the boat, of course. There was nothing he could do to stop them. And now Tao would learn of the failure of his plans.
Mercer's first idea was to give up and return to the shore of the sea; but Anina kept on going cautiously forward, and he followed her.
The fire, they could see as they got closer, was built a little back from the water, with a slight rise of ground between it and the boat. There were some thirty men gathered around; they seemed to be cooking.
"You stand here, Ollie," Anina whispered. "I go hear what they say. Stand very quiet and wait. I come back."
Mercer sat down with his back against a tree and waited. Anina disappeared almost immediately. He heard no sound of her flight, but a moment later he thought he saw her dropping down through the trees just outside the circle of light from the fire. From where he was sitting he could see the boat also; he thought he made out the figure of a man sitting in it, on guard. The situation, as Mercer understood it from what Anina told him when she returned, seemed immeasurably worse even than he had anticipated.
Tao had been making the Water City the basis of his insidious propaganda, rather than the Great City, as we had supposed. He had been in constant communication by boat with his men in the Water City; and now affairs there were ripe for more drastic operations.
This boat Mercer had come upon was intended to be Tao's first armed invasion of the Light Country--some twenty of his most trusted men armed with the light-ray. Joining his emissaries in the Water City, and with the large following among the people there which they had already secured, they planned to seize the government and obtain control of the city. Then, using it as a base, they could spread out for a conquest of the entire nation. Mercer listened with whitening face while Anina told him all this as best she could.
"But--but why does he want to attack the Light Country, Anina? I thought he wanted to go and conquer our earth."
"Very big task--your earth," the girl answered. "Light Country more easy. Many light-rays in the Great City. Those he needs before he goes to your earth. More simple to get those than make others."
Mercer understood it then. The large quantity of light-ray ammunition stored in the Great City was what Tao was after. This was his way of getting it, and once he had it, and control of the Light Country besides he would be in a much better position to attack the earth.
The idea came to Mercer then to steal the boat and escape with it. If he could do that, the enemies would have to return to the Lone City on foot, and the threatened invasion of the Light Country would thus be postponed for a time at least. Meanwhile, with the boat he could hasten back to me with news of the coming invasion.
These thoughts were running through his head while Anina was talking. It was a daring plan, but it might be done. There was apparently only one man in the boat, and the slight rise of ground between it and the fire made him out of sight, though not out of hearing, of the others.
"Can you run the boat, Anina?"
The girl nodded eagerly. Mercer drew a long breath.
"We'll take a chance. It's the only way. They've got that cursed light-ray." He shivered as he thought of the danger they were about to invite.
Then he explained to Anina what they were to do. She listened carefully, with the same expectant, eager look on her face he had seen there so often before.
They left the blanket and fur jacket on the ground, and, making a wide detour around the fire, came back to the river bank several hundred yards above the boat. They stood at the water's edge, looking about them. The boat was just around a slight bend in the stream; the glimmer of the fire showed plainly among the trees. Intense quiet prevailed; only the murmur of the water flowing past, and occasionally the raised voice of one of the men about the fire, broke the stillness.
Mercer stared searchingly into the girl's eyes as she stood there quietly at his side. She met his gaze steadily.
"You're a wonderful little girl," he whispered to her, and then abruptly added: "Come on. Don't make any splash if you can help it. And remember, if anything goes wrong, never mind me. Fly away--if you can."
They waded slowly into the water. The current carried them rapidly along. Side by side, with slow, careful strokes, they swam, keeping close to shore. The river was shallow--hardly over their heads. The water was cold and, Mercer thought, curiously buoyant.
It seemed hardly more than a moment before the shadowy black figure of outlines of the boat loomed ahead. They could make out the figure of its single occupant, sitting with his arm on the gunwale. They swam hardly at all now, letting the current carry them forward. As silent as two drifting logs they dropped down upon the boat and in another moment were clinging to a bit of rope that chanced to be hanging over its stern.
The bow of the boat was nosed against the bank; it lay diagonally downstream, with its stern some twenty feet from shore. Its occupant was sitting amidships, facing the bow. Mercer drew himself up until his eyes were above the stern of the boat and saw him plainly. He was slouching down as though dozing. His elbow was crooked, carelessly over the gunwale.
Mercer's heart gave an exultant leap as he saw a little cylinder in the man's hand. There was a little projection on the boat at the water line, and, working along this with his hands, Mercer edged slowly toward the man. He knew he could not be heard, for the murmur of the water slipping past the sides of the boat drowned the slight noise he made.
He edged his way along, with not much more than his face out of water, until he was directly beneath the motionless form in the boat.
Mercer's heart was beating so it seemed to smother him. Slowly he pulled himself up until the fingers of his left hand gripped the gunwale hardly more than a foot or two behind the man's back. His other hand reached forward. He must have made a slight noise, for the man sat suddenly upright, listening.
Mercer's right hand shot out. His fingers closed over the little cylinder and the hand holding it. He bent it inward, twisting the man's wrist. His thumb fumbled for the little button Anina had described. There was a tiny puff of light; the man's body wavered, then fell forward inert. Mercer climbed into the boat. He looked back. Anina was pulling herself up over the stern. A long pole lay across the seats. He picked it up and started with it toward the bow. And then he tripped over something and fell headlong, dropping the pole with a clatter.
As he picked himself up there came a shout from the men in the woods. Mercer hurried forward and cast off the rope that held the boat to the bank. It had been tied more or less permanently at this end. As he fumbled at the knots he heard Anina's soft, anxious voice calling: "Hurry, Ollie, hurry!"
The shouts from the woods continued. The k
nots loosened finally. The boat slid back away from the bank; with the pole Mercer shoved the bow around. An instant later Anina had started the mechanism, and in a broad curve they swung silently out into the river.
Up from the woods shot a beam of the greenish-red light. It darted to and fro for an instant, almost vertically in the air, and Mercer heard the crackle of the tree-tops as they burst into flame under its heat. Then it swung downward, but before it could reach the water level the rise of ground at the bank cut it off.
Without realizing it, Mercer had been holding his breath as he watched. Now he let it out with a long sigh of relief.
"We did it, Anina--we did it," he said exultantly. "And we've got a light-ray, too."
A moment later they swept around a bend in the river, out of sight and out of hearing of their enemies.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE STORM.
On the little stern seat of the boat Mercer and Anina sat side by side, the girl steering by a small tiller that lay between them. They were well out in the middle of the river now, speeding silently along with its swift current. They made extraordinary speed. Both banks of the river were visible in the twilight--dim, wooded hills stretching back into darkness.
The stream widened steadily as they advanced, until near, its mouth it had become a broad estuary. They followed its right shore now and soon were out in the Narrow Sea.
"We'd better go right on across," said Mercer. "It's too early for Alan to be at the end of the trail. He won't be there till to-night. We can reach the Great City before he starts."
They decided to do that, and headed straight out into the sea. They had been cold, sitting there in the wind, and wet to the skin. But the boat contained several furry jackets, which the men had left in it, and in the bottom, near the stern, a cubical metal box which lighted up like an electric radiator. By this they had dried and warmed themselves, and now, each with a fur jacket on, they felt thoroughly comfortable.
Mercer was elated at what they had accomplished. He could see now how fortunate a circumstance it was that we had set the men free. He would not have stumbled upon this other party, and the invasion of the Light Country would have begun, had we not released them.
He talked enthusiastically about what we were to do next, and Anina listened, saying very little, but following his words with eager attention. Once he thought she was more interested in the words themselves than in what he was saying, and said so.
"Your language--so very easy it is. I want to learn it soon if I can."
"Why, you know it already," he protested. "And how the deuce you ever got it so quickly beats me."
She smiled.
"When you say words--very easy then for me to remember. Not many words in spoken language."
He shook his head.
"Well, however you do it, the result's all right. I'm mighty glad, too. Why, when I get you back home on earth--" He stopped in sudden confusion.
She put her hand on his arm.
"Miela says your earth is very wonderful. Tell me about it."
She listened to his glowing words. "And opera--what is that?" she asked once when he paused.
He described the Metropolitan Opera House, and the newer, finer one in Boston. She listened to his description of the music with flushed face and shining eyes.
"How beautiful--that music! Can you sing, Ollie?"
"No," he admitted, "but I can play a little on a guitar. I wish I had one here."
"I can sing," said the girl: "Miela says I can sing very well."
He leaned toward her, brushing the blue feathers of her wing lightly with his hand.
"Sing for me," he said softly. "I'll bet you sing beautifully."
It may have been their situation, or what they had been through together, or the girl's nearness to him now with her long braids of golden hair, the graceful sweep of her blue-feathered wings that matched the blue of her eyes, her red lips parted in song--but whatever it was, Mercer thought he had never heard so sweet a voice. She sang a weird little song. It was in a minor key, with curious cadences that died away and ended nowhere--the folk song of a different race, a different planet, yet vibrant with the ever unsatisfied longing of the human soul.
She sang softly, staring straight before her, without thought of her singing, thinking only of her song. She ended with a tender phrase that might have been a sigh--a quivering little half sob that died away in her throat and left the song unfinished. Her hands were folded quiet in her lap; her eyes gazed out on the gray waste of water about the boat.
Mercer breathed again.
"That is beautiful, Anina. What is it?"
She turned to him and smiled.
"Just love song. You like it, my friend Ollie?"
"It's wonderful. But it's--it's so sad--and--and sort of weird isn't it?"
"That is love, my mother says. Love is sad."
Mercer's heart was beating fast.
"Is it always sad, Anina? I don't think so--do you?"
There was no trace of coquetry in her eyes; she sighed tremulously.
"I do not know about love. But what I feel here"--she put her hand on her breast--"I do not understand, Ollie. And when I sing--they are very sad and sweet, the thoughts of music, and they say things to the heart that the brain does not understand. Is it that way with you?"
Unnoticed by the two, a storm cloud had swept up over the horizon behind them, and the sky overhead was blotted now with its black. They had not seen it nor heeded the distant flashing of lightning. A sudden thunderclap startled them now into consciousness of the scene about them. The wind rushed on them from behind. The sea was rising rapidly; the boat scudded before it.
"A storm! Look at it, Anina, behind us!"
There was nothing in sight now but the gray sea, broken into waves that were beginning to curl, white and angry. Behind them the darkness was split with jagged forks of lightning. The thunder rolled heavily and ominously in the distance, with occasional sharp cracks near at hand.
"Look, Anina--there comes the rain! See it there behind us! I hope it won't be a bad storm. I wouldn't want to be out in this little tub."
The wind veered to the left, increasing steadily. The sea was lashed into foam; its spray swept over the boat, drenching them thoroughly.
The waves, turning now with the wind, struck the boat on its stern quarter. One curled aboard, sloshing an inch or two of water about the bottom of the boat. Mercer feared it would interfere with the mechanism, but Anina reassured him.
As the waves increased in size, Mercer swung the boat around so as to run directly before them. The stern frequently was lifted clear of the water now, the boat losing headway as a great cloud of hissing steam arose from behind.
After a time the Light Country shore came into sight. They were close upon it before they saw it through the rain and murk. They seemed to be heading diagonally toward it.
"Where are we, Anina?" Mercer asked anxiously.
The girl shook her head.
Steadily they were swept inward. The shore line, as they drew closer, was to Mercer quite unfamiliar. There were no bayous here, no inundated land. Instead, a bleak line of cliffs fronted them--a perpendicular wall against which the waves beat furiously. They could see only a short distance. The line of cliffs extended ahead of them out of sight in the gray of the sheets of rain.
They were slanting toward the cliffs, and Mercer knew if he did not do something they would be driven against them in a few moments more.
"We'll have to turn out, Anina. We can't land along here. We must keep away if we can."
With the waves striking its stern quarter again, the boat made much heavier weather. It seemed to Mercer incredible that it should stay afloat. He found himself thoroughly frightened now, but when he remembered that Anina was in no danger he felt relieved. He had made her lie down in the boat, where she would be more sheltered from the wind and rain. Now he hastily bade her get up and sit beside him.
"We might be swamped any minut
e, Anina. You sit there where you won't get caught if we go over."
They swept onward, Mercer keeping the boat offshore as best he could.
"Haven't you any idea where we are, Anina? How far along do these cliffs extend?"
A huge, jagged pinnacle of rock, like a great cathedral spire set in the cliff, loomed into view ahead. Anina's face brightened, when she saw it.
"The way to the Water City," she cried. "A river there is--ahead. Not so very far now."
In spite of all Mercer could do, they were blowing steadily closer to the wave-lashed cliffs.
He began to despair. "If anything happens, Anina--you fly up at once. You hear? Don't you wait. You can't help me any. I'll make out some way. You say good-by to Alan and your mother and sister for me--if--" He fell silent a moment, then said softly: "And, Anina, if that should happen, I want you to know that I think you're the sweetest, most wonderful little girl I ever met. And, Anina dear--"
The girl gripped his arm with a cry of joy.
"See, Ollie! There, ahead, the cliffs end. That is the Water City river! See it there?"
The mouth of a broad estuary, with the waves rolling up into it, came swiftly into view. They rounded the rocky headland and entered it, running now almost directly before the wind. The river narrowed after a short distance to a stream very much like the one they had left in the Twilight Country.
Mercer turned to the quiet little girl beside him.
"Well, Anina, we've certainly had some trip. I wouldn't want to go through it again."
Mercer thought the situation over. They could stay where they were in the river for an hour or two until the storm was entirely over, and then go back to the Great City. On the other hand, now that they were here, Mercer felt a great curiosity to see this other city where Tao's men had created trouble. Why should they not use these few hours of waiting to see it?
"We might get a line on how things stand up there to tell Alan when we get back," Mercer said when he explained his ideas to Anina. "It won't take long." Very probably it was the light-ray cylinder in his hand which influenced his decision, for he added: "We can't get into any trouble, you know; there's no light-ray here yet."