The thin babble of distant sound that Alan had twice heard while Jongor knelt beside the pool came again. The first two times it had come Jongor had been too intent on Queen Nesca’s message for the sound to register on his consciousness. This time it did register. A startled look appeared on his face.
“I heard that noise before,” Alan said. “What is it, Jongor?”
“Blackfellows.” the giant answered.
“Blackfellows!” Ann Hunter gasped. Blackfellows was the term applied to the savage aborigines who haunted the fringe of Lost Land. She knew too well what the word meant. In entering this country she had had to fight her way through these same savages. “Are they near?” she whispered.
Jongor did not answer. An arrow notched on the string of his great bow, he was already slipping silently across the little glade in the direction from which the sound had come. “You two wait here for me,” he flung back over his shoulder.
As quietly as the movement of a shadow, he slipped away into the jungle dusk.
“Jongor! Wait!” Ann called hastily. There was no answer.
CHAPTER II
The Blackfellows
“HE probably went rushing off to keep a date with his girlfriend,” Alan Hunter said.
“He did not!” Ann said hotly. “He went to scout those savages.”
“Why should he go hunting them?” her brother asked. “Jongor can whip a hundred Blackfellows. He isn’t worried about them. The thing that got him all hot and bothered was this message from Queen Nesca. Boy! Would I like to fall in with one of these queens! Some dusky beauty—Hey, where are you going?”
The girl had turned and was walking away. Night was swiftly falling. Before Alan quite realized what was happening, she was out of sight.
“Hey, Ann!” he yelled. “Come back here. You know better than to go chasing around in this country after dark.”
She did not answer.
“Ann!” Alan shouted. “I was only teasing you. Can’t you take a little kidding?”
There was a note of panic in his voice. He knew that Ann was head over heels in love with Jongor, and, like all brothers everywhere, he could not resist teasing her about it. He did not expect her to get mad and go stalking off into the darkness, at least not when the Blackfellows were known to be in the vicinity.
“Ann, you idiot!” he called. “Come back here.”
The only sound that came to his straining ears was the thin babble of the savages in the distance. They were holding some kind of a celebration off there somewhere in the night. He could hear a ragged chant rising on the soft night wind. Ann did not answer.
He started after her. Crossing the little glade, he plunged into the edge of the jungle. Ann had not gone far. He called again, softly, now. She would get over her huff in a few minutes and would answer him. Anyhow she had her rifle and would be in no danger. Alan had lost his own gun months before in Lost Land and he was armed with a heavy spear that Jongor had given him. He called again.
Crash!
The sharp bang of her rifle split the night.
Then—silence.
Alan Hunter saw the flash of the gun. He could not see what she had shot at.
“Ann! Are you all right?” he called softly.
He waited for her to answer. The night was still. Perhaps she had shot at an animal, maybe at a shadow. If she was in danger, she would shoot again. She knew how to handle a gun and she had been long enough in the jungle to know danger when she saw it. Alan was not particularly worried. She knew how to take care of herself.
Suddenly she screamed.
Crash! The gun thundered again. This time it was fired wildly into the air.
“Look out, Alan!” she screamed.
As though it were shut off by a hand closing quickly around her throat, the scream shuddered abruptly into silence. Alan started toward her.
Swish!
He heard the sound but he did not see the missile. The swishing sound came from a heavy club thrown through the air. It struck him on the back of his head. Stars exploded before his eyes. As he crashed to the ground he was vaguely aware of an excited gibbering in the jungle around him. The gibbering went into silence as consciousness abruptly faded out.
ALAN HUNTER regained consciousness to the accompaniment of a splitting pain in the back of his head. There was another and even more torturing pain localized somewhere in the region of his shoulder blades. With the vague memory of being hit on the-head, he knew he should have a headache but the pain around his shoulder blades he could not understand at all. He was not yet completely conscious. Then he opened his eyes. And realized why his shoulders hurt.
His arms were tied behind his back. He was sitting flat on the ground, his feet thrust out in front of him. There was a stake at his back. His arms were tied to this.
Twenty feet in front of him, so near that he could feel the heat, a fire was burning. There were four fires, he vaguely saw, but the one in front of him held his attention. Wood was being piled on it. The fire was growing in size, was becoming hotter. When it died down to a bed of coals it would make a first class fire in which to roast a sizzling steak.
Figures were dancing around the fire. Fuzzy-headed figures. They were carrying shields, spears, clubs. They were shrieking a wild, barbaric chant that rose and fell and rose again in a kind of erratic rhythm.
What makes here, Alan vaguely wondered. He was still a little dazed. His memory had not completely returned.
“Oh, God—” a voice whispered hear him.
He turned his head. To his right, there was another fire. The blaze of this fire was already dying down to a bed of glowing coals. There was a stake driven into the ground in front of the fire.
To the stake a man was tied. It was this man that Alan had heard groan.
“Oh, God—” he groaned again.
Several of the dancers detached themselves from the main group and ran to the man. Alan thought they were going to release him, to help him, perhaps offer him-a drink of water. Instead they began jabbing him with their spears.
The man screamed at the top of his voice.
The natives jabbed him again. They took care not to thrust the spears in too deeply—their purpose was not to kill—but each time they thrust at him with the sharp-pointed weapons, they drew blood.
“Why don’t you kill me and have it over with?” the man screamed. He lunged at his tormentors, trying to break free, and the stout stake to which he was tied shook from his efforts. It did not pull out of the ground and the bonds binding his arms behind him did not break. The Blackfellows regarded his efforts with great interest, and Alan got the impression they were half-hoping he would manage to pull up the stake and break free. Then they would have the pleasure of running him down.
“Go on and kill me,” the man begged.
The natives laughed at him.
“Shut up, Morton!” a heavy voice said.
BY craning his neck, Alan could see another stake. A second man was tied to it. It was this second man who had spoken. “The more you rave and carry on, the more they like it,” this second man continued. “Don’t you see that they want you to scream? That’s why they’re torturing you—so they can have the pleasure of listening to your yells.”
“But they’re going to kill us and eat us,” Morton groaned. “I tell you, Schiller, they’re going to roast us in those fires and eat us!”
“What of it?” Schiller said imperturbably. “Living here between the desert and the mountains the way they do, they never have a chance to get a full stomach. This is probably the first opportunity any of them ever had for a square meal.”
“D—don’t talk like that!” Morton begged.
“The trouble with you is, you haven’t got any guts,” Schiller said. “Now shut your mouth, you dirty yellow dog, and die like the man you’re not.” Morton’s groans subsided to gasping sobs. The firelight revealed tears running down his cheeks. The savages, laughing, went back to the dance around the fires.
Alan Hunter tu
rned his head to one side and retched. He knew now what had happened and what was going to happen. The Blackfellows had caught him. Somehow they had managed to catch two other white men. They were going to eat the three. The only ray of comfort in Alan Hunter’s life at that moment was the knowledge that Ann had escaped. The Blackfellows hadn’t caught her. She had a gun and she could fight them off until Jongor came. She might have to hide in the jungle for a while but Jongor would find and rescue her.
Ann had escaped!
He bad teased her and she had gone stalking off into the jungle. Because of that, she would live. It awed him a little to think on what a strange twist of fate her safety had depended. If he hadn’t teased her. Not until then did he fully realize there were four fires.
The Blackfellows had built a fire for each victim. There were only three men to be sacrificed. Who was the fourth fire for?
Alan was at one end of the line. Then came Morton, then Schiller. The fourth fire was at the far end.
He craned his neck, caught a glimpse of a stake driven into the ground, saw a figure slumped against that stake.
Ann!
The Blackfellows had caught her! She hadn’t escaped!
CHAPTER III
The Monster from the Night
MORTON was praying again. The man was hysterical. As the fires died down to beds of hot coals, his hysteria increased. Schiller was cursing him in a dull monotone.
“Shut up, damn you!” Morton screamed.
Oddly, as though Morton’s sudden defiance somehow frightened him, Schiller did shut up.
Alan Hunter worked with the rawhide things which had been used to the his hands together. He felt them give a little and his heart leaped with hope.
If he could get his hands free—Then what? There were at least a hundred of the savages. Even with his hands free, he wouldn’t stand a chance and he knew it. But he kept trying. He could work only when he was certain he was unobserved, and, worst of all, he could not see what he was doing.
His only real hope was that Jongor would somehow come and rescue them. He had an amazing amount of confidence in that gray-eyed jungle giant, but he also knew that Jongor was no superman. Jongor could work miracles. In a fair fight, Jongor could whip twenty of these scrawny Blackfellows, and not raise a sweat doing it, but even Jongor could not whip a hundred of, them. Alan Hunter kept working, trying to free his arms.
The moon had risen.
The fires were hot furnaces of coals. There was little flame in them, but much heat.
The Blackfellows had stopped their dancing and were busying themselves in drawing the beds of coals into the proper position for roasting.
“Oh, God—” Morton moaned.
The Blackfellow turned to their victims. Groups ran to each stake. Jabbering excitedly, they began untying the rawhide thongs.
Thrrrummm!
Hissss!
Spat!
The three sounds followed each other so rapidly that they were almost indistinguishable. The first sound came from the surrounding fringe of jungle. The last sound came from a Blackfellow who was eagerly loosing the thong that held Ann Hunter to the stake. It was caused by an arrow striking him in the chest and driving so deeply into his body that only the feathered tip showed.
The savage clutched at the arrow. He was dead already, but. he didn’t know it yet. He tried to pull the arrow from his body. His legs sagged out from under him. He fell flat on his face and did not move after he touched the ground.
The arrow had come so quickly that even the natives did not fully realize what was happening. The first impression of most of them was that their comrade had been struck down by some angry god. There was an instant of silence.
Thrrrummm!
Again the bowstring throbbed in the darkness. A feathered shaft lanced through the dim firelight, spatted viciously as it drove into the body of another native.
This time the Blackfellows realized what was happening. Somebody, hidden in the darkness, was shooting arrows at them! It was not a god who was striking them dead. It was an enemy with a bow. They knew how to deal with an enemy.
Brandishing their spears they ran toward the spot from which the arrows had come.
“Run, Jongor!” Ann Hunter screamed. “There are too many of them for you to fight.”
She knew the source from which those arrows came. Jongor! Mighty Jongor was out there in the darkness. The knowledge that he was out there trying to save them lit a burning flame of hope in her heart. But even as she knew he was there, she also knew there were too many Blackfellows for him to overcome alone. He might kill a few of them, but he just didn’t have a chance against the whole tribe. They were certain to pull him down in the end, no matter how well he fought. She called to him to run, to save himself.
Answering her, another arrow came out of the darkness.
A FURIOUS yell went up from the savages. They did not know who was shooting at them, but from the fact that the arrows came one by one, they suspected there was only one man out there in the night. It would give them much pleasure to pull one man down, to drive another stake into the ground, to build another roaring fire and dance around it while it died down to a bed of coals. They screamed their defiance.
Answering screams came back from the night. Out there somewhere in the darkness a mighty voice was yelling.
“Move, thou cousin to the snake!” the voice screamed. “Move, I say. Get thy lumbering carcass into action, thou mountain of worm food, before I beat thy scaly hide off thy bony back.”
The voice changed its tone. “Run, little one,” it said pleadingly. “Run very fast. Run straight toward those bright lights that you see ahead of us. Do not be afraid of the fires. I won’t let them harm you. Run, little one. Run!”
Something snorted in the night. There was a tremendous crashing of branches. Trees began to shake.
The horde of savages suddenly stopped their charge toward the jungle.
“Run, little one,” the voice spoke again. “Be a nice little boy and run very fast.”
The answering snort came again.
Knocking shrubs to the right and left, something burst from the wall of the jungle. It tossed a huge head upward, saw the fires, and tried to draw back.
“Thou monstrous mountain of chicken-hearts!” a voice shouted. “Shy away from those fires and I will beat thy thimbleful of brains out. Charge, I say! The fires will not hurt thee. I will not let them. Charge!”
There was a series of loud whacks, as of a club striking a bony back.
The beast snorted. It charged toward the fires. The very ground shook as it rumbled forward.
“God help us!” Morton shouted. “It’s the devil himself come after us.”
“Shut up!” Schiller hissed at him. “Whatever that thing is, it’s come to help us.”
The enraged screams of the Blackfellows had died into abrupt silence as the beast fought its way clear of the jungle growth. They got a good look at it. It was twice as tall as a man. It was as big as a hundred men. The thing must have weighed tons. The ground shook as it lunged forward.
The Blackfellows were savage fighters. They would not have run from the devil himself. Ann Hunter, who had seen them charge the death-dealing guns of the white man, knew they were reckless fighters who would face death without faltering.
They faced this monster who had come at them out of the jungle night.
“Tear them to pieces, little one,” the voice came again. “Trample them into the dirt.”
Snorting, the beast came forward.
“By God! It’s a dinosaur!” Schiller shouted. There was incredulous, stupefied amazement in his voice. When the beast had come out of the jungle he had not known what it was. Now, as it came forward out of the shadow of the trees and into the moonlight, he got a good look at it.
There was no questioning what he saw. It was a dinosaur.
Startling as was that fact, there was something even more startling.
The monster had a rider! Ridin
g on the beast’s broad back was about the biggest white man he had ever seen! It was this man whose voice they had heard from the jungle!
Like a circus performer, he was standing erect on the dinosaur’s back. In his left hand was a huge bow.
Thrrrumm! Tkrrrumm! Thrrrum!
Arrow after arrow was leaping from the bow-string, straight into the mass of savages.
Each time he loosed an arrow, the rider yelled at the top of his voice.
“Give ’em hell, Yale.”
JONGOR was riding the dinosaur. Jongor had never been within ten thousand miles of Yale. Alan Hunter had taught him the yell. He was using it now. It was a splendid way to make noise. Jongor knew that noise was as effective a weapon against the Blackfellows as his arrows. Noise would frighten them.
Jongor knew he had to scare them into running. There were too many of them for him to fight, even with the help of the dinosaur. One well-aimed spear, one thrown club, would tumble him off the monster’s back. If that happened, the dinosaur would run away, and he would be swept down by a horde of yelling savages.
He was counting on the sudden appearance of the dinosaur putting fear into the hearts of the Blackfellows. Living on the desert fringe of Lost Land, never quite daring to penetrate the mountains and enter the hidden country itself, they had never seen a dinosaur. Or he hoped they hadn’t.
Just the sight of one of the beasts ought to scare the wits out of them.
Yelling at the top of his voice, he forced the dinosaur to charge the savages.
They didn’t run!
They wavered, started to draw back. Then their chief, screaming that they were mangy cowards who deserved to be fed to yellow dogs, leaped, out in front of the mass. Yelling at them to follow him, he charged the dinosaur. The savage chieftain had a heavy spear. He didn’t throw it recklessly. He had seen the rider on the back of the dinosaur, had guessed that the rider was all they really had to fear.
He intended to get the rider.
Jongor coolly notched an arrow. He saw the chief, he knew the chief saw him. The dinosaur and the native, running toward each other, were rapidly closing the gap between them. Jongor suspected that the native planned to wait until the dinosaur was almost upon him, then leap to one side and hurl his spear.
Jongor- the Complete Tales Page 10