CHAPTER XV
_Terrors of the Jungle_
Towahg had learned the names of these white-skinned ones who came downfrom whatever heaven was pictured in his rudimentary mind. Hispronunciation of them was peculiar: it had not been helped any by reasonof Diane's having been his teacher. Her French accent was delightful tohear, but not helpful to a Dark Moon ape-man who was grappling withEnglish.
But he knew them by name, using always the French "Monsieur," and whenChet repeated: "Monsieur Kreiss--he go," pointing through the jungle,and followed this with the command: "Towahg go! Me go!" the ape-man'sunlovely face drew into its hideous grin and he nodded his headviolently to show that he understood.
Chet gripped a hand each if Harkness and Diane and clung to them for amoment. Below their knoll the white morning mist drifted eerily towardthe lake; the knoll was an island and they three the only livingcreatures in a living world. It was the first division of their littleforce, the first parting where any such farewell might be the last. Thesilence hung heavily about them.
"Au 'voir," Diane said softly; "and take no chances. Come back here andwe'll win or lose together."
"Blue skies," was Walt Harkness' good-by in the language of the flyer;"blue skies and happy landings!"
And Chet, before the shrouding mist swallowed him up, replied in kind.
"Lifting off!" he announced as if his ship were rising beneath him, "andthe air is cleared. I'll drop back in four days if I'm lucky."
Towahg was waiting, curled up for warmth in the hollow of a great tree'sroots. Like all the ape-men he was sullen and taciturn in the chill ofthe morning. Not until the sun warmed him would he become his customaryself. But he grunted when Chet repeated his instructions, "MonsieurKreiss, he go! Now Towahg go too--go where Monsieur Kreiss go!" and heled the way into the jungle where the scientist had emerged.
* * * * *
Chet followed close through wraith-like, drifting mist. They wereascending a gentle slope; among the trees and tangled giant vines themist grew thin. Then they were above it, and occasional shafts of goldenlight shot flatly in to mark the ascending sun.
They were climbing toward the big divide, that much Chet knew. White,ghostly trees gave place to the darker, gloomier growth of the uplands.Strange monstrosities, they had been to Chet when first he had seenthem, but he was accustomed to them now and passed unnoticing amongtheir rubbery trunks, so black and shining with morning dew.
Far above a wind moved among the pliant branches that whipped andwhirled their elastic lengths into strange, curled forms. Then themiracle of the daily growth of leaves took place, and the rubbery limbswere clothed in green, where golden flowers budded prodigiously beforethey flashed open and filled the wet air with their fragrance.
They were following the path that Chet had traveled on his morning tripsto the divide for a view of the ship. Kreiss would have gone this way,of course, although to Chet, there was no sign of his having passed.Then came the divide, and still Chet followed where Towahg led sullenlyacross the expanse of barren rocks. Towahg's head was sunk between hisblack shoulders; his long arms hung limply; and he moved on with asteady motion of his short, heavily muscled legs, with apparently nothought of where he went or why.
Chet stopped for a moment's look at the distant sparkle that meant theshining ship, which shone green as on every other day, and he wonderedas he had a score of times if it might be possible for them to make asuit--a bag to enclose his head, or a gas-mask--anything that could bemade gas-tight: and could be supplied with air. Then he thought of thebow that was slung on his shoulder and the stone ax at his belt. Thesewere their implements: these were all they had.... Suddenly he began towalk rapidly down the slope after Towahg who was almost to the trees.
* * * * *
Again they were among the black rubbery growth. It rose from a tangle ofmammoth leafed vines and creepers that wove themselves into animpassable wall--impassable until Towahg lifted a huge leaf here, swunga hanging vine there, and laid open a passage through the livinglabyrinth.
"How did Kreiss ever find his way?" Chet asked himself. And then hequestioned: "Did he come this way? Is Towahg on the trail?"
Again he repeated his instructions to the ape-man, and he showed his ownwonder as to which way they should go.
The sun must have done its work effectively, for now Towahg's wide grinwas in evidence. He nodded vigorously, then dropped to one knee andmotioned for Chet to see for himself, as he pointed to his proof.
Chet stared at the unbroken ground. Was a tiny leaf crushed? It mighthave been, but so were a thousand others that had fallen from above. Heshook his head, and Towahg could only show his elation by hoppingludicrously from one foot to the other in a dance of joy.
Then he went on at a pace Chet found difficulty in following, until theycame to a place where Towahg tore a vine aside to show easier going, butclimbed instead over a fallen tree, grown thickly with vines, and hereeven Chet could see that other feet had tripped and stumbled. The MasterPilot glanced at the triple star still pinned to his blouse; he thoughtof the study and training that had preceded the conferring of thatrating, the charting of the stars, navigational problems in athree-dimensional sea. And he smiled at his failure to read this trailthat to Towahg was entirely plain.
* * * * *
"Every man to his job," he told the black, and patted him on theshoulder, "and you know yours, Towahg, you're good! Now, where do wesleep?"
He ventured to suggest a bed of leaves that had gathered amongst a mazeof great rocks, but Towahg registered violent disapproval. He pointed toa pendant vine; his hands that were clumsy at so many things gave anunmistakable imitation of a bud that developed on that vine and opened.Then Towahg sniffed once at that imaginary flower, and his body wentsuddenly limp and apparently lifeless as it fell to the ground.
"You're right, old top!" Chet assured him, as Towahg came again to hisfeet. "This is no place to take a nap." A crashing of some enormous bodythat tore the tough jungle in its rush came from beyond the rocks.
"And there are other reasons," he added as he followed Towahg's exampleand leaped for a hanging tangle of laced vines. Here was a ladder readyto take them to the high roof above, but they did not need it; thecrashing died away in the distance.
It was Chet's first intimation that this section of the Dark Moon heldbeasts more huge than the "Moon-pigs" he had killed: it was a disturbingbit of knowledge. He caught Towahg's cautious, wary eyes and motionedtoward the branches high overhead.
"How about hanging ourselves up there for the night?" he asked, and thegestures, though not the words, were plain, as the ape-man's quickdissent made clear.
* * * * *
He motioned Chet to follow. Down they plunged, and always down. Towahggave Chet to understand that Kreiss had slept some distance beyond: theywould try to reach the same place. But the quick-falling dusk caughtthem while yet among the black rubbery trees. And the dark showed Chetwhy their branches might not be inviting as a sleeping place.
By ones and twos they came at first, occasional lines of light thatflowed swiftly and vanished through the black tangle of limbs. Chetcould hardly believe them real; they appeared and were lost from sightas if they had melted.
But more came, and it seemed at last as if the roof above were alivewith light. The moving, luminous things glowed in hues that were neverstill: were pure gold, were green, then red, melting and changingthrough all the colors of the spectrum.
Living fireworks that were a blaze of gorgeous beauty! They wove anever-moving canopy of softest lights that raced dazzlingly to and fro,that crossed and intertwined; that were dazing to his eyes while theyheld his senses enthralled by their color and sheer loveliness ... untilone light detached itself and fell toward him where he stood spellboundbeside a giant fern.
It struck softly behind him, and its crimson glory flashed yellow as itstruck, then went b
lack and in the dim light, on a great leathery leafwith a spread of ten feet, Chet saw an enormous worm, whose head was athing of writhing antennae, whose eyes were pure deadliness, and whoseround corrugated body drew up the hanging part that the leaf could nothold. It hunched itself into a huge inverted U and, before Chet couldrecover from his horrified surprise, was poised to spring.
* * * * *
It was Towahg's strength, not his own, that threw him bodily down thepath. It was Towahg who poured a volley of grunted words and shrieksinto his ear, while he dragged him back. Chet saw the vicious head flashto loveliest gold while it shot forward to the body's full twelve feetof length--twelve feet of pulsing lavender and rose and flashing crimsonthat was more horrible by reason of its beauty.
Chet stumbled to his feet and raced after Towahg. The ape-man moved inswift silence, Chet close at his back. And other luminous horrorsdropped on ropes of translucent silver behind them, until the ghostlywhite of friendly trees became visible, and they stood at last,breathless and shaken, as far as Chet was concerned, in the familiarjungle of the lower valleys.
And Towahg, to whom poison vines and writhing, horrible worms of deaththat had failed to make him their prey were things of a forgotten past,curled up in the shelter of an outflung snarl of great roots, gruntedonce, and went calmly to sleep.
But Chet Bullard, accustomed only to man-made dangers that would haveheld Towahg petrified with fear, lay long, staring into the dark.
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