He shook his head. "I cannot do that, David," he said. "You are now a Ruvan warrior, and no Ruvan may go to live in any other country."
"I have another favor to ask, then," I said, "that I think you will not find too difficult to grant."
"What is it?" he asked.
"I should like to have a slave," I said.
"Certainly," he agreed. "When we return to Ruva, you may select one of the slaves that we have taken today."
"I do not want any that you have selected," I said. "I want that girl over there;" and I pointed to the slave from Suvi.
Ro-Tai raised his eyebrows and hesitated for a moment; but then he said, "Why not? You are both white. You should have a mate, and you cannot mate with a Ruvan."
Well, I would let him think what he pleased, just so long as I acquired a slave from Suvi.
I walked over to the girl. "You are my slave," I said. "Come with me. What is your name?"
"Lu-Bra," she said; "but I do not want to be your slave. I do not want to go with you. I belong to a woman here, and she is kind to me."
"I shall be kind to you," I said. "You need have no fear of me."
"But I still do not want to go with you. I would rather die."
"You are going with me, nevertheless, and you are not going to die, and you are not going to be harmed in any way. You may believe me that you are going to be very glad that I selected you."
Well, she had to come along with me. There was nothing she could do about it; but she was not very happy. I didn't want to tell her what I had in mind, for the success of the plan I had concocted depended solely upon the secrecy with which I could carry it out.
The warriors of Ruva ate in the village of the Ko-vans, who were their unwilling hosts; and then we returned to the ocean with our slaves and embarked for Ruva; and Lu-Bra, the slave-girl from Suvi, went with me.
The wind had risen since we landed on Ko-va; and now it was blowing half a gale and the seas were commencing to run high. It looked to me like a risky venture to embark in the face of such ominous weather; but the Ruvans seemed to think nothing of it. The wind had not only freshened but it had changed; so that now I could run directly before it, and our canoe fairly flew through the water. We didn't have to wait for the others this time, and they were soon specks far astern. The warriors who were fortunate enough to have been selected as the crew of this boat were highly enthusiastic. They had never travelled so fast before, and they had never travelled at all without hard work. Now they just sat idle and contented, and watched the waves go by.
But I was not so contented. My improvised mast and cordage were being subjected to terrific strain. There were creakings and squeakings that filled me with apprehension; and the sea and the wind were rising. I can tell you that I breathed a sigh of relief when I glimpsed Ruva in the distance, although there was still plenty of time for disaster to overtake us before we ran into one of her sheltering coves.
The sky was overcast with ominous clouds. The air about us was filled with spindrift. The wind howled and shrieked like malevolent demons seeking to terrify those whom they were about to destroy. The seas became mountainous. I glanced at my companions, and I was aware that for the first time they were showing marked concern. I was considerably worried myself, for I didn't see how this frail craft could possibly survive the fury of the storm. Why my sail and mast did not carry away, I still cannot conceive; but they held. The great flowing seas never quite engulfed us, and we drew rapidly nearer and nearer the shore.
As we came closer, I witnessed a strange and terrifying sight. The entire island, as far as I could see, was rising and falling as though in the throes of a terrific and continuous earthquake. Mountainous waves were breaking on the low shoreline and carrying tons of water into the forest. Pieces of the island were breaking off and disintegrating. How could we hope to make a landing under such conditions? And then Ro-Tai voiced that very doubt.
"We can't land here," he said. "We must try to make the lee side of the island."
I knew that that would be impossible. To change our course now would throw us into the trough of these enormous seas, and the craft would be capsized almost immediately. There was just one slender hope; and I held my course straight for that tossing, leaping shoreline.
We were almost upon it. I held my breath, and I imagine the Ruvans did likewise. We rose to the crest of a great sea. With my stone knife I cut the sheet, and the sail streamed out, flapping in the gale. We were only a few yards from the shore toward which we were rushing with the speed of an express train; and, for the few seconds that were required to assure the success of my mad scheme, the canoe clung to the crest of a great wave and we were carried inland and hurled among the trees of the forest.
Why no one was killed is still a mystery to me. Some were injured; but the rest of us managed to hold the canoe from being carried back into the ocean by the receding waters.
Before another large wave descended upon us, we stumbled deeper into the forest. We were being constantly hurled to the ground by the upheaval of the ground beneath us; and sometimes a wave would reach us but broken and rendered harmless by the trees of the forest.
At last we reached the village, where we found most of the huts lying collapsed upon the ground, while the Ruvans who had not accompanied the expedition, and the slaves, lay prone and terrified in the clearing.
My fear was that the entire island would disintegrate. I did not see how it could withstand the terrific forces that were wrenching at it, pulling it this way and that, raising and lowering it, twisting and turning it. I asked Ul-Van what he thought our chances were.
"I have seen but one such storm before in my lifetime," he said. "Portions of the island were broken off and lost; but the main part of the island withstood the worst that wind and sea could do. If the storm does not last too long, I think that we are safe."
"And what about the men in the other canoes?" I asked.
Ul-Van shrugged. "Some of them may reach shore," he said; "but it is more likely that none of them ever will. It was your sail that saved us, David."
Chapter XXVII
THAT STORM meant more to me than the destruction of Ruva or its menace to my own existence, for I knew that out there somewhere among those mountainous waves was Dian in a frail canoe. Her chances for survival seemed to me absolutely non-existent. I tried to drive these destructive fears from my mind, and with the abating of the storm I partially succeeded; and hope was at last again renewed when the warriors we had given up for lost returned to the village. Not a canoe had been lost, nor not a man. It was a marvel of extraordinary seamanship.
The first concern of the Ruvans was to rebuild their village; and in this work everyone joined, including the women and children. When this work was completed, I told Ro-Tai that I was going to repair the damage done to the sailing canoe. He asked me if I wanted any help, but I told him that I would need no one other than my slave, Lu-Bra. He did not insist upon my taking anyone else, nor did he put any watch over me this time. Evidently he had accepted me as a full-fledged member of the tribe; and so Lu-Bra and I went down to the seashore to commence our task.
Having found that I had no intention of harming her, the girl's spirits had returned and she seemed quite content and happy.
While I worked on the canoe, I had her gather food and prepare it. She also collected a supply of water from the trees, and filled bamboo containers with it. These things I hid in the forest near my work.
I made some bone fish-hooks for her, and taught her how to fish in the quiet waters of the inlet. The fish she caught, she smoked and dried and packed away for future use.
I did not acquaint her with my plan; but I had to place some trust in her, as it was necessary to caution her to silence relative to our collection and storage of food and water. She asked no questions, and that was a good sign, for a person who asks no questions can usually keep his own counsel.
She had been a prisoner of the Ko-vans for a considerable period, probably for
a number of years of outer earthly time. She had been there when Dian and Do-gad had been brought from the mainland, and had become well acquainted with Dian who told her that after she had escaped from the maneating giants of Azar, she had also succeeded in escaping from Do-gad but that he had pursued her and that the very moment he had overtaken her they had both been captured by the Ko-vans.
I shuddered to think of all that my lovely Dian had been compelled to endure because her love for me had driven her forth in search of me. That she should die without knowing that I was comparatively safe seemed a cruel blow of Fate. She could not even know that I had escaped from the Jukans after I had left her in the cave and gone back to rescue Zor and Kleeto.
My work upon the canoe progressed nicely; but I was still highly impatient for the moment when I could put my plan into execution. The only danger now was that it might be discovered if some Ruvan stumbled upon our cache of food and water. I would have hard work explaining that away.
At last it was finished; and on the way back to the village I warned Lu-Bra to be sure not to mention this fact. "Certainly not," she said. "Do you think I want to give our plan away?"
Our plant "Why do you call it our plan?" I asked. "You don't even know what I have in mind."
"Oh yes I do," she said; "and it is our plan, because I have worked and helped you."
"That is right," I said; "and whatever the plan is, it is ours together; and we will carry it out together, and we will say nothing about it to anyone else. Is that right?"
"Absolutely," she said.
"And what do you think the plan is?" I asked her.
"You are going back to the mainland in that canoe which goes without paddles; and you are taking me with you to point the direction to Suvi, because you cannot do it yourself. That is why you chose me from among the other slaves of Ko-va. I am not a fool, David. It is all quite plain to me, and you need have no fear that I shall divulge our secret to anyone."
I liked the use of the word "our." It almost assured her loyalty, even aside from anything else that she had said.
"I was very fortunate," I said.
"In what way?" she demanded.
"In finding you, instead of another slave, on Ko-va. You are intelligent and loyal, and you also know when you are well off. But how did you know that I could not find my way to the mainland without someone's help?"
"Who, in Suvi, does not know all about David, Emperor of Pellucidar?" she demanded. "Who does not know that he is from another world, and that he can do almost everything better than we of Pellucidar, but that if he is taken out of sight of familiar landmarks, he could never find his way home again? That is a marvel to us Pellucidarians, something which we cannot understand. It must be a strange world in which you lived, where no one dared go far from home, knowing that he could never find it again."
"But we do find our way around, even better than Pellucidarians," I said, "because we not only can find our way home, but we can find our way to any place in our world."
"That," she said, "is incomprehensible."
I had been working on the canoe very steadily, and, of course, there being no way of measuring time, I had no way of knowing how long we had been absent from the village. Having had our own food supply, we had eaten occasionally, but neither of us slept. The fact that both of us were very sleepy should have told us that we had been absent for a considerable period of time; and this must have been true, for when we returned we discovered that preparations had been almost completed for a huge feast to celebrate our victory over the Ko-vans. Everybody was very excited about it, but all that Lu-Bra and I wanted to do was to go to our huts and sleep.
O-Ra, who often sought my company when I was in the village, asked me what in the world Lu-Bra and I could be doing to be away so much.
"We are working on the canoe that goes without paddles," I replied.
"I shall have to come with you the next time you go," she said, "because I have never seen it."
Well, that was just what I didn't want, because I had planned that the next time Lu-Bra and I went to the canoe we would never return. We had only returned this time in order to get a good sleep before we set out upon our voyage; but I said, "That will be fine, O-Ra; but why don't you wait until I have finished it?"
"Oh, I can come then, too, and have a ride in it," she said. "Do you know, David, I wish that you were not white. I cannot imagine a finer mate than you. I think I shall ask Ro-Tai to make an exception in your case, so that I may be your mate."
"Because I have a slave?" I asked, laughing.
"No," she said. "I should get rid of Lu-Bra because I think you like her too well. I would not care to have a rival."
The young lady was quite frank. Sometimes these paleolithic maidens are; but not always. Dian had been just the opposite.
"Well," I said, "you may make somebody a fine mate, but not me. I already have one."
O-Ra shrugged. "Oh, you'll never see her again," she said. "You've got to live here all the rest of your life, and you might as well have a mate."
"Forget it, O-Ra," I said, "and pick out a nice man of your own race."
"Do you mean that you don't want me?" she demanded, angrily.
"It is not a question of wanting you or not wanting you," I replied. "It is that, as I told you before, I already have a mate; and in my country we never have but one at a time."
"That's not the reason," she snapped. "You're in love with Lu-Bra. That's why you go out together alone all the time. Any fool could see that."
"Well, have it your own way, O-Ra," I said. "I'm going to get some sleep now;" and I turned and left her.
When I awoke I was thoroughly rested; and, shortly after, Lu-Bra awoke. When we came out of the hut we saw that they were already gathering for the feast. I was ravenously hungry and wanted to eat, and I knew that Lu-Bra must want to also. The fact that a feast was going on gave us an excellent opportunity to escape without detection, since every member of the tribe would be in the village during the feast, and there would be no likelihood of anyone discovering us while we launched the canoe and loaded it up with our supplies.
I suggested this to Lu-Bra. "I think we can get out of here, now, without being seen," I said. "They will think that we are still asleep in our hut, if they miss us, which they may not."
"Good," she said. "We can keep the huts between us and them until we enter the forest;" and so we bade farewell to the village of the Ru-vans for what we hoped would be the last time.
We hurried to the canoe; and, with our combined efforts, managed finally to drag it into the water; then we hastened to load it with our provisions.
We had just about completed our work when I saw someone approaching through the forest from the direction of the village. It was too late now to conceal what we were doing, and I knew that whoever it was would know what we were contemplating the moment that they saw us loading the canoe with water and food.
Lu-Bra was returning from the cache with her arms full, and I was just starting back for another load, when O-Ra burst upon the scene.
"So that's what you're doing," she flared, angrily. "You are going to run away, and you are going to take that white-faced thing with you."
"You guessed it the first time, O-Ra," I said.
"Well, you're not going to do it. I'll see to that," she snapped. "But if you want to escape from Ruva, I'll go with you instead of that girl. If you won't do that, I'll give the alarm."
"But I have to take Lu-Bra," I said. "Otherwise, I could never find the mainland." I thought maybe by explaining I could mollify her. "You know, O-Ra, that you could not show me how to reach the mainland."
"Very well, take her along, too, then, as guide; but I am going as your mate."
"No, O-Ra," I said. "I am sorry; but that would not work out."
"You won't take me?" she asked.
"No, O-Ra."
Her eyes flashed angrily for a moment, and then she turned and walked back into the forest. It seemed to me that she ha
d given up very easily.
Lu-Bra and I hurried as fast as we could to load the remainder of our provisions in the canoe. We couldn't afford to leave without taking everything that we had collected, for we had no idea how long we would be on the water before we reached the mainland.
We had stowed away the last load, and Lu-Bra had taken her place in the canoe, when I heard the sounds of approaching men; and I knew that O-Ra had returned to the village and reported what she had discovered. I pushed off and paddled away from shore just as forty or fifty Ruvan warriors burst into sight. Ro-Tai was in the lead, and he shouted to me to come back; but I turned the nose of the canoe toward the open sea and started to hoist the sail. There was a slight off-shore wind, and it seemed an eternity before the sail caught the little breeze that reached us. Both Lu-Bra and I paddled frantically; but if we did not get more wind we never could escape the Ruvans, who were now piling into their canoes to take up the pursuit.
The leading canoe shot out from the shore; but now we were far enough out so that we were catching a little more wind and moving just a little more rapidly. However, they were overhauling us; and all the time Ro-Tai was shouting for me to come back; and his canoe was drawing nearer.
They came within a spear-throw of us; but now we were holding about even. Ro-Tai stood up in the canoe with his spear poised to throw.
"Come back," he said, "or you die!"
Lu-Bra had crossed from Ko-va in the canoe, and since then she had asked many questions relative to its handling. Whether or not she could steer it I didn't know, but I had to take the chance; and so I called her to me and told her to take the steering paddle; then I fitted an arrow to my bow and stood up.
"Ro-Tai, I do not want to kill you," I said; "but if you don't lay down that spear I shall have to."
He hesitated a moment. A gust of wind bellied our sail bravely, and the canoe leaped ahead just as Ro-Tai hurled his weapon. I knew that it would fall short; and so I did not shoot him, for I liked Ro-Tai and he had been kind to me.
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