It was Nalte who broke the silence. As though she had read my thoughts, she said, "You loved Duare very much?"
"Yes," I replied.
Nalte sighed. "It must be sad to lose one's mate."
"She was not my mate."
"Not your mate!" Nalte's tone expressed her surprise. "But you loved one another?"
"Duare did not love me," I replied. "At least she said she didn't. You see, she was the daughter of a jong and she couldn't love any one until after she was twenty."
Nalte laughed. "Love does not come or go in accordance with any laws or customs," she said.
"But even if Duare had loved me, which she didn't, she couldn't have said so; she couldn't even talk of love because she was the daughter of a jong and too young. I don't understand it, of course, but that is because I am from another world and know nothing of your customs."
"I am nineteen," said Nalte, "and the daughter of a jong, but if I loved a man I should say so."
"Perhaps the customs of your country and those of Duare's are not the same," I suggested.
"They must be very different," agreed Nalte, "for in my country a man does not speak to a girl of love until she has told him that she loves him; and the daughter of the jong chooses her own mate whenever she pleases."
"That custom may have its advantages," I admitted, "but if I loved a girl I should want the right to tell her so."
"Oh, the men find ways of letting a girl know without putting it into words. I could tell if a man loved me, but if I loved him very much I wouldn't wait for that."
"And what if he didn't love you?" I asked.
Nalte tossed her head. "I'd make him."
I could readily understand that Nalte might be a very difficult young person not to love. She was slender and dark, with an olive skin and a mass of black hair in lovely disorder. Her eyes sparkled with health and intelligence. Her features were regular and almost boyish, and over all was the suggestion of a veil of dignity that bespoke her blood. I could not doubt but that she was the daughter of a jong.
It seemed to be my fate to encounter daughters of jongs. I said as much to Nalte.
"How many have you met?" she asked.
"Two," I replied, "you and Duare."
"That is not very many when you consider how many jongs there must be in Amtor and how many daughters they must have. My father has seven."
"Are they all as lovely as you?" I asked.
"Do you think me lovely?"
"You know you are."
"But I like to hear people say so. I like to hear you say it," she added softly.
The roars of hunting beasts came up to us from the dim forest aisles, the screams of stricken prey; then the silence of the night broken only by the murmuring of the river rolling down to some unknown sea.
I was considering a tactful reply to Nalte's ingenuous observation when I dozed and fell asleep.
* * * * *
I felt some one shaking me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes to look up into Nalte's. "Are you going to sleep all day?" she demanded.
It was broad daylight. I sat up and looked around. "We have survived another night," I said.
I gathered some fruit, and we cooked some more of the meat left from my kill of the previous day. We had a splendid breakfast, and then we set off again down stream in our quest for—what?
"If we do not find Duare to-day," I said, "I shall have to admit that she is irrevocably lost to me."
"And then what?" asked Nalte.
"You would like to return to your own country?"
"Of course."
"Then we shall start up the big river toward your home."
"We shall never reach it," said Nalte, "but—"
"But what?" I demanded.
"I was thinking that we might be very happy while we were trying to reach Andoo," she said.
"Andoo?" I queried.
"That is my country," she explained. "The mountains of Andoo are very beautiful."
There was a note of wistfulness in her voice; her eyes were contemplating a scene that mine could not see. Suddenly I realized how brave the girl had been, how cheerful she had remained through the hardships and menacing dangers of our flight, all despite the probably hopelessness of her situation. I touched her hand gently.
"We shall do our best to return you to the beautiful mountains of Andoo," I assured her.
Nalte shook her head. "I shall never see them again, Carson . A great company of warriors might not survive the dangers that lie between here and Andoo—a thousand kobs of fierce and hostile country."
"A thousand kobs is a long way," I agreed. "It does seem hopeless, but we'll not give up."
The Amtorians divide the circumference of a circle into a thousand parts to arrive at their hita, or degree; and the kob is one tenth of a degree of longitude at the equator (or what the Amtorians call The Small Circle), roughly about two and a half earth miles; therefore a thousand kobs would be about two thousand five hundred miles.
A little mental arithmetic convinced me that Nalte could not have drifted down the big river two thousand five hundred miles without food, and I asked her if she was sure that Andoo was that far away.
"No," she admitted, "but it seems that far. We wandered a long time before we reached the river, and then I drifted for so long that I lost track of time."
Nevertheless, if we found Duare, I was going to be faced by a problem. One girl must go down the valley in search of her own country, the other up the valley! And only one of them had even a hazy idea of where her country lay!
Chapter 12—The Last Second
DURING THE afternoon of the second day of our search for Duare, Nalte and I came to the big river that Duare and I had seen from the summit of the escarpment, the same river down which Nalte had drifted into the clutches of Skor.
And it was a big river, comparable to the Mississippi . It ran between low cliffs of gleaming white limestone, flowing silently out of the mystery above, flowing silently toward the mystery below. Upon its broad expanse, from where it swept majestically into sight around a low promontory to where it disappeared again beyond a curve down stream, there was no sign of life, nor on either bank—only the girl, Nalte, and I. I felt the awe of its grandeur and my own insignificance.
I had no words to express my thoughts; and I was glad that Nalte stood in silence that was almost reverential as we viewed the majesty and the desolation of the scene.
Presently the girl sighed. It awoke me to the need of the moment. I could not stand mooning there in the face of the immediate necessity that confronted us.
"Well," I said, "this is not crossing the river." I referred to the affluent that we had followed down from the castle of Skor .
"I am glad that we do not have to cross the big river," remarked Nalte.
"We may have enough trouble crossing this other," I suggested.
It flowed at our left, making a sudden turn before it emptied into the larger stream. Below us was a great eddy that had strewn the nearer bank with flotsam—leaves, twigs, branches of all sizes, and even the boles of great trees. These things appeared to have been deposited during a period of high water.
"How are we going to cross?" asked Nalte. "There is no ford, and it seems too wide and swift to swim even if I were a good swimmer." She looked up at me quickly then as a new thought seemed to strike her. "I am a burden to you," she said. "If you were alone you would doubtless be able to cross easily. Pay no attention to me; I shall remain on this side and start up the river on my journey toward Andoo."
I looked down at her and smiled. "You really do not believe or hope that I will do anything of the sort."
"It would be the sensible thing to do," she said.
"The sensible thing to do is to build a raft with some of that stuff down there and float across the river." I pointed to the debris piled up on the bank.
"Why, we could do that, couldn't we?" she cried.
She was all eagerness and excitement now, and a moment later s
he pitched in and helped me drag out such pieces as I thought we could use in the construction of a raft.
It was hard work, but at last we had enough material to float us in safety. The next job was to fasten the elements of our prospective raft together so securely that the river could not tear it to pieces before we had gained the opposite bank.
We gathered lianas for that purpose, and though we worked as rapidly as we could it was almost dark before we had completed our rude ferry.
As I contemplated the fruit of our labor, I saw Nalte surveying the swirling waters of the eddy with a dubious eye.
"Are we going to cross now," she asked, "or wait until morning?"
"It is almost dark now," I replied. "I think we had better wait until tomorrow."
She brightened visibly and drew a deep sigh of relief.
"Then we had better think about eating now," she said. I had found the girls of Venus not unlike their earthly sisters in this respect.
The meal that night was a matter of fruit and tubers, but it was sufficient. Once more I constructed a platform among the branches of a tree and prayed that no prowling arboreal carnivore would discover us.
* * * * *
Each morning that I awoke on Venus it was with a sense of surprise that I still lived, and this first morning on the big river was no exception.
As soon as we had eaten we went to our raft, and after some difficulty succeeded in launching it. I had equipped it with several long branches for poling and some shorter ones that we might use as oars after we got into the deep channel, but they were most inadequate makeshifts. I was depending almost exclusively on the eddy to carry us within striking distance of the opposite shore, where I hoped that we would then be able to pole the raft to the bank.
Our craft floated much better than I had anticipated. I had feared that it would be almost awash and most uncomfortable; but the wood was evidently light, with the result that the top of the raft was several inches above the water.
No sooner had we shoved off than the eddy seized us and commenced to bear us up stream and out toward the center. Our only concern now was to keep from being drawn into the vortex, and by poling frantically we managed to keep near the periphery of the whirlpool until the water deepened to such a degree that our poles would no longer touch bottom; then we seized the shorter branches and paddled desperately. It was gruelling work, yet Nalte never faltered.
At last we swung in toward the left bank, and once more we seized our poles, but, to my astonishment and chagrin, I discovered that the water here was still too deep. The current, too, was much stronger on this side than on the other; and our futile oars were almost useless.
Remorselessly the river held us in its grip and dragged us back toward the vortex. We paddled furiously, and held our own; we were keeping away from the center of the eddy, but we were being carried farther from the left bank.
Presently we were in mid-channel. We seemed to be hanging on the very edge of the eddy. Both of us were almost exhausted by this time, yet we might not pause for an instant. With a last, supreme effort we tore the raft from the clutches of the current that would have drawn us back into the embrace of the swirling Titan; then the main current of the mid-channel seized us—a fierce, relentless force. Our craft swirled and bobbed about absolutely beyond control, and we were swept down toward the great river.
I laid aside my inadequate paddle. "We have done our best, Nalte," I said, "but it wasn't good enough. Now all that we can do is to hope that this thing will hang together until we drift to one shore or the other somewhere along the big river."
"It will have to be soon," said Nalte.
"Why?" I asked.
"When Skor found me he said that I was fortunate to have come to shore where I did, as farther down the river tumbles over falls."
I looked at the low cliffs that lined the river on both sides. "There isn't any chance of making a landing here," I said.
"Perhaps we shall have better luck lower down," suggested Nalte.
Down we drifted with the current, sometimes borne close to one shore, sometimes close to the other as the channel meandered from bank to bank; or again we rode far out on the center of the flood. Sometimes we saw little breaks in the cliffs where we might have made a landing; but we always saw them too late, and were carried past before we could maneuver our clumsy craft within reach.
* * * * *
As we approached each bend we looked expectantly for some change in the shore line that would offer us some hope of landing, but always we were disappointed. And then, at last, as we swung around a headland, we saw two cities. One lay upon the left bank of the river, the other on the right directly opposite. The former appeared gray and drab even at a distance, while that upon the right bank shone white and beautiful and gay with its limestone walls and towers and its roofs of many colors.
Nalte nodded toward the city on the left bank. "That must be Kormor; this is about the location that Skor told me his city occupied."
"And the other?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Skor never mentioned another city."
"Perhaps it is all one city built upon both banks of the river," I suggested.
"No; I do not think so. Skor told me that the people who dwelt across the river from Kormor were his enemies, but he never said anything about a city. I thought it was just some savage tribe. Why, that is a splendid city—far larger and handsomer than Kormor."
We could not, of course, see the entire expanse of either city, but as we drifted closer it was apparent that the city on our right extended along the river front for several miles. This we could see because at this point the river ran almost as straight as a canal for a greater distance than I could see. But the city on our left, which was Kormor, was much smaller, extending but about a mile along the water front. As far as we could see both cities were walled, a high wall extending along the river side of each. Kormor had a short quay in front of a gate about the center of this wall, while the quay of the other city appeared to be a long avenue extending as far as I could see.
We had been drifting for some time opposite the right hand city before we came close to Kormor. There were a few fishermen on the long quay of the former city, and others, possibly sentries, on top of the wall behind them. Many of these saw us and pointed at us and seemed to be discussing us, but at no time did we drift close enough to that side of the river so that we could obtain a close view of them.
As we came down toward the quay of Kormor, a small boat pushed out into the river. It contained three men, two of whom were rowing while the third stood in the bow. That they were pulling out to intercept us appeared quite evident.
"They are Skor's men," said Nalte.
"What do you suppose they want of us?" I asked.
"To capture us, of course, for Skor; but they will never capture me!" She stepped toward the edge of the raft.
"What do you mean?" I demanded. "What are you going to do?"
"I am going to jump into the river."
"But you can't swim," I objected. "You will be sure to drown."
"That is what I wish to do. I shall never let Skor take me again."
"Wait, Nalte," I begged. "Why haven't taken us yet. Perhaps they won't."
"Yes, they will," she said hopelessly.
"We must never give up hope, Nalte. Promise me that you will wait. Even in the last second you can still carry out your plan."
"I will wait," she promised, "but in the last second you had better follow my example and join me in death rather than fall into the hands of Skor and become one of those hopeless creatures that you saw at his castle, for then you will be denied even the final escape of death."
The boat was now approaching closer, and I hailed its occupants. "What do you want of us?" I demanded.
"You must come ashore with us," said the man in the bow.
* * * * *
I was close enough now so that I could get a good look at the fellow. I had thought at first that they were some mo
re of Skor's living dead, but now I saw that this fellow's cheeks had the hue of health and blood.
"We will not come with you," I called back to him. "Leave us alone; we are not harming you. Let us go our way in peace."
"You will come ashore with us," said the man, as his boat drew closer.
"Keep away, or I'll kill you!" I cried, fitting an arrow to my bow.
The fellow laughed—a dry, mirthless laugh. Then it was that I saw his eyes, and a cold chill swept over me. They were the dead eyes of a corpse!
I loosed an arrow. It drove straight through the creature's chest, but he only laughed again and left the arrow sticking there.
"Do you know," cried Nalte, "that you cannot kill the dead?" She stepped to the far side of the raft. "Good-by, Carson ," she said quietly; "the last second is here!"
"No! No, Nalte!" I cried. "Wait! It is not the last second."
I turned again toward the approaching boat. Its bow was already within a foot of the raft. I leaped upon him. He struck at me with his dead hands; his dead fingers clutched for my throat. But my attack had been too quick and unexpected. I had carried him off his balance, and in the same instant I seized him and threw him overboard.
The two other creatures had been rowing with their backs toward the bow and were unaware that any danger threatened them until I crashed upon their leader. As he went overboard the nearer of the others rose and turned upon me. His skin, too, was painted in the semblance of life, but those dead eyes could not be changed.
With a horrid, inarticulate scream he leaped for me. I met his rush with a right to the jaw that would have knocked a living man down for a long count; and while, of course, I couldn't knock the thing out, I did knock it overboard.
A quick glance at the two in the water convinced me that my guess had not been amiss—like their fellows at the castle, the two could not swim and were floating helplessly down stream with the current. But there was still another, and it was stepping across the thwarts toward me.
I sprang forward to meet it, ripping in a blow toward the side of the jaw that would have sent it after the other two had it connected; but it did not. Our movements caused the boat to rock and threw me off my balance, and before I could regain my equilibrium the creature seized me.
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