CHAPTER XVII
_Hunted Down_
Work on the house was resumed. "And when it is done," said Diane with agay laugh, "Walter and I shall have our wedding day. Now you see why youwere wanted so badly, Chet; it was not that we worried for you, but onlythat we feared the loss of the one person on the Dark Moon who couldperform a marriage ceremony."
"And I thought all along it was my clever carpenter work that hadcaptivated you," responded Chet, and tried to fit the splintered end ofa timber into a forked branch that made an upright post.
And each day the house took form, while the sun shone down with tropicalwarmth where the work was going on.
Only Harkness and Chet were the builders. Diane's strength was not equalto the task of cutting tough wood with a crude stone ax, and HerrKreiss, though willing enough to help when asked, was usually in his owncave, busied with mysterious experiments of which he would tell nothing.
Towahg, their only remaining Helper, could not be held. Too wild forrestraint of any kind, he would vanish into the jungle at break of dayto reappear now and then as silently as a black shadow. But he kept themall supplied with game and fruit and succulent roots which his wilderbrethren of the forest must have shown him were fit for food.
And then came an interruption that checked the work on the house, thatdrained the brilliant sunshine of its warmth and light, and turned allthoughts to the question of defense.
The two had been working on the roof, while Diane had returned to thejungle for another of the big leaves. She carried her bow on such trips,although the weeks had brought them a sense of security. But for Chetthis feeling of safety vanished in the instant that he heard Harkness'half-uttered exclamation and saw him drop quickly to the ground.
* * * * *
Beyond him, coming through the green smother of grass that was now ashigh as her waist, was Diane. Even at a distance Chet could see theunnatural paleness of her face; she was running fast, coming along thetrail they had all helped to make.
Chet hit the ground on all fours and reached for the long bow with whichhe had become so expert; then followed Harkness who was racing to meetthe girl.
"An ape!" she was saying between choking breaths when Chet reached them."An ape-man!" She was clinging to Harkness in utter fright that wasunlike the Diane he had known.
"Towahg," Harkness suggested; "you saw Towahg!" But the girl shook herhead. She was recovering something of her normal poise; her breath camemore evenly.
"No! It was not Towahg. I saw it. I was hidden under the big leaves. Itwas an ape-man. He came swinging along through the branches of thetrees: he was up high and he looked in all directions. I ran. I think hedid not see me.
"And now," she confessed, "I am ashamed. I thought I had forgotten thehorror of that experience, but this brought it all back.... There! I amall right now."
Harkness held her tenderly close. "Frightened," he reassured her, "andno wonder! That night on the pyramid left its mark on us all. Now, come;come quietly."
He was leading the girl toward the knoll that they all called home. Chetfollowed, casting frequent glances toward the trees. They had coveredhalf the distance to the barricade when Chet spoke in a voice that washalf a whisper in its hushed tenseness.
"Drop--quick!" he ordered. "Get into the grass. It's coming. Now let'ssee what it is."
* * * * *
He knew that the others had taken cover. For himself, he had flung hislanky figure into the tall grass. The bow was beside him, an arrowready; and the tip of polished bone and the feathered shaft made it aweapon that was not one to be disregarded. Long hours of practice haddeveloped his natural aptitude into real skill. Before him, he partedthe tall grass cautiously to see the forest whence the sound had come.
The swish of leaves had warned Chet; some far-flung branch must havefailed to bear the big beast's weight and had bent to swing him to theground--or perhaps the descent was intentional.
And now there was silence, the silence of noonday that is so filled withunheard summer sounds. A foot above Chet's head a tiny bat-winged birdrocked and tilted on vermilion leather wings, while its iridescent headmade flickering rainbow colors with the vibrations of a throat thathummed a steady call. Across the meadow were countless other flashing,humming things, like dust specks dancing in the sun, but magnified andintensely colored.
Above their droning note was the shrill cry of the insects that spenttheir days in idle and ceaseless unmusical scrapings. They inhabited theshadowed zone along the forest edge. And now, where the foliage of thetowering trees was torn back in a great arch, the insect shrillingceased.
As the strings of a harp are damped and silenced in unison, their myriadvoices ended that shrill note in the same instant. The silence spread;there was a hush as if all living things were mute in dread expectancyof something as yet unseen.
Chet was watching that arched opening. In one instant, except for theflickering shadows, it was empty; the place was so still it might havebeen lifeless since the dawn of time. And then--
* * * * *
Chet neither saw nor heard him come. He was there--a hulking hairyfigure that came in absolute silence despite his huge weight.
An ape-man larger than any Chet had seen: he stood as motionless as anexhibit in a museum in some city of a far-off Earth. Only the white ofhis eyeballs moved as the little eyes, under their beetling black brows,darted swiftly about.
"Bad!" thought Chet. "Damn bad!" If this was an advance scout for a pickof great monsters like himself it meant an assault their own littleforce could never meet. And this newcomer was hostile. There was not theleast doubt of that.
Chet reached one hand behind him to motion for silence; one of hiscompanions had stirred, had moved the grass in a ripple that was notthat of the wind. Chet held his hand rigid in air, his whole bodyseeming to freeze with a premonition that was pure horror; and withinhim was a voice that said with dreadful certainty: "They have found you.They have hunted you down."
For the thing in the forest, the creature half-human, half-beast, hadraised its two shaggy arms before it; and, with eyes fixed and staring,it was walking straight toward them, walking as no other living thinghad walked, but one. Chet was seeing again that one--a helplesslyhypnotized ape that appeared from a pit in a great pyramid. And thevoice within him repeated hopelessly: "They have found you. They haverun you down."
Chet lay motionless. He still hoped that the dread messenger might passthem by, but the rigidly outstretched arms were extended straight towardhim; the creature's short, heavily muscled legs were moving stiffly,tearing a path through the thick grass and bringing him nearer withevery step.
* * * * *
Diane and Harkness had been a few paces in advance of Chet when theydropped into the concealing grass. Chet could see where they lay, andthe ape-man, as he approached, turned off as if he had lost thedirection. He passed Chet by, passed where Walt and Diane were hidingand stopped! And Chet saw the glazed eyes turn here and there abouttheir peaceful valley.
Unseeing they seemed, but again Chet knew better. Was he moresensitively attuned than the others? Who could say? But again he caughta message as plainly as if the words had been shouted inside his brain.
"Yes, the valley of the three sentinel peaks and the lake of blue; wecan find it again. Houses, shelters--how crudely they build, thesewhite-faced intruders!" Chet even sensed the contempt that accompaniedthe thoughts. "That is enough; you have done well. You shall have theirraw hearts for your reward. Now bring them in--bring them in quickly!"
The instant action that followed this command was something Chet wouldnever have believed possible had his own eyes not seen the incredibleleap of the huge body. The ape-man's knotted muscles hurled him throughthe air directly toward the spot where Walt and Diane were hidden. But,had Chet been able to stand off and observe himself, he might have beenequally amazed at the sight of a man who l
eaped erect, who raised a longbow, fitted an arrow, drew it to his shoulder, and did all in theinstant while the huge brute's body was in the air.
The great ape landed on all fours. When he straightened and stooderect--his arms were extended, and in each of his gnarled hands he helda figure that was helpless in that terrible grasp.
No chance to loose the arrow then, though the brute's back was halfturned. He had Harkness and Diane by their throats, and Chet knew by theunresisting limpness of Harkness' body that the fearful fire in thoseblazing eyes had them in a grip even more deadly than the hands of thebeast.
* * * * *
Thoughts were flashing wildly through Chet's brain. "Knocked 'em cold!He'll do the same to me if I meet his eyes. But I can't shoot now;Diane's in line. I must take him face about; get him before he getsme--get him first time!"
And, confusedly, there were other thoughts mingled with hisown--thoughts he was picking up by means of a nervous system that waslike an aerial antenna:
"Good--good! No--do not kill them. Not now; bring them to us alive. Thepleasure will come later. And where are the other two? Find them!" Itwas here that Chet let out a wordless, blood-curdling shriek from lungsand throat that were tight with breathless waiting.
He must face the big brute about, and his wild yell did the work.Startled by that cry that must have reached even those calloused, savagenerves, the ape-man leaped straight up in the air. He whirled as hesprang, to face whatever was behind him, and he threw the bodies ofHarkness and Diane to the ground.
Chet saw the black ugliness of the face; he saw the eyes swing towardhim.... But he was following with his own narrowed eyes a spot on ahairy throat; he even seemed to see within it where a great carotidartery carried pumping blood to an undeveloped brain.
The glare of those eyes struck him like a blow: his own were drawnirresistibly into that meeting of glances that would freeze him to arigid statue--but the twang and snap of his own bowstring was in hisears, and a hairy body, its throat pierced in mid-air, was fallingheavily to the ground.
But Chet Bullard, even as he leaped to the side of his companions, wasthinking not of his victory, nor even of the two whose lives he hadsaved. He was thinking of some horror that his mind could not clearlypicture: it had found them; it had seen them through this ape-man's eyesbefore the arrow had closed them in death ... and from now on therecould not be two consecutive minutes of peace and happiness in thisHappy Valley of Diane's.
Brood of the Dark Moon Page 17