She was frightened for a moment, upon first awakening in the dark and in a place she didn't remember, and stared up at the smothering leaves and clung to him.
"It's all right," he soothed her. "We're in here, don't you remember? That place we crawled into. We've got to go on soon."
He brought her some more water, and they waited just a brief while longer. Then he crawled out and helped her to her feet after him, and they started on the second lap. This one would-have to decide their safety or destruction, he knew. Their strength and abihty to stay on their feet wouldn't survive another night without food.
In a little while there was more Hght to see by. The process of extinguishment was arrested, even reversed itself partially. A coppery haze appeared in the eastern sky, like brick dust floating around in the night. A little open space and a rise of ground in one place gave them a direction finder. From there they found one pole, and by going opposite to it, that gave them the other. Off in the distance the shape of the temple was silhouetted against a late rising apricot moon. That meant that in a straight line from there, if they continued with their backs toward it, they were bound to find the mountains. The jungle closed around them again as they resumed their way, and blotted it out.
The going was hard. He hadn't the use of a machete or anything to cut with. He had to find other ways of getting through. He detoured around obstacles, crawled under them when they weren't too low, and often used his own body as a breastwork to give her passage through some thicket or bramble that was particularly thorny.
Once they had a bad few moments with some sort of spongy, fibrous creeper, about the thickness of a gas tube. It snarled around her throat and tightened, and she couldn't go forward and she couldn't go back. They even thought for a horrifying moment it might be something animal, a snake of the boa or anaconda variety, but it wasn't, it didn't move, it was vegetable. He found he couldn't sever it with his hands, and when he tried to do so, that only tightened it more. He had her spade her hands in under it, as a sort of protective pad between it and her throat. He cursed his own witlessness in leaving the knife in the body of the warrior back in the temple. As it was, he had only one cutting edge about him to use against it, and so he used it, though she pleaded with him not to. His teeth.
"It may be poisonous. Look out. Don't."
"It won't be," he said, and hoped he was right.
He gnawed through it. Some kind of juice came out of it that was flamingly bitter and flowed around in his mouth, but he did the job. At last his teeth met through it, and it was in two.
They flung it off her and went on. He spent the next five minutes expectorating energetically as he traveled along.
They put on every ounce of speed the night and the jungle and their weakened, punished frames would allow them. The mountains, frosty blue along their tops in the moonlight and visible only when the curtain before them dipped low enough now and then, looked nearer than they had in the daylight the day before, but that might have only been because of the moonlight.
"We've got to hit that tomb entrance pretty accurately, don't forget. There isn't any other way out."
"Suppose they've already got there ahead of us, and are waiting?"
He'd thought of that himself, long ago, and hadn't liked the thought much. "We're not there yet. Don't let's worry about that till we are."
They had no way of telling whether their pursuers were ahead of them or behind them, or even dispersed all around them, so that they were advancing blindly through a sac of them. They never knew from one minute to the next when they might blunder into them, and once a racket of outraged parrots and monkeys, starting up spontaneously out of the slumbering jungle drone around them, showed they very nearly had.
They crouched low in sudden immobility and waited. It didn't come again, just that once, and then after a long cautious time they went on again.
"It might not have been," he whispered guardedly. "Some big cat, maybe, springing for one of those monkeys."
It took will power to keep pushing on; the brief tumult had come from ahead of them, rather than in their wake. They diverged a little, bypassing the exact direction as far as they were able to determine it.
He noticed something that he didn't like. Her mind was beginning to wander a little from time to time. He knew it was probably nothing more than excess fatigue, but it was a bad sign, a warning signal. Once she said unexpectedly, "Is my dad going to be waiting for us, where we're going?"
He didn't know what to say. And then before he could answer, she asked in self-startlement, "What did I say just then?"
The ground was already starting to rise under them. Not steadily, but by fits and starts that augured well. They should be out of the tangle sometime before the end of the night if they could hold out that long.
The moon set again—the same moon that had seen Mitty's death the night before—and now the night was on the wane. They kept going steadily for some time after that, to squeeze the last possible inch of distance they could out of the sheltering darkness. Then they had to drop down again and rest, even if it meant extinction on the spot. Flesh and blood couldn't possibly stand any more.
She didn't sleep this time. He wouldn't let her. He wouldn't let himself either. He kept digging his own nails into the soft underpart of his hands, so the pain would keep his eyelids up. He coimted off ten minutes, and just when rest was beginning to penetrate their racked frames to a depth sufficient to take hold, he broke it off short again.
In pulling her up after hini this time, he nearly toppled down again himself. They leaned against one another inertly for a moment, like two slanted poles that support one another by their very inclination, then tottered on. The stars overheard were flickering to contraction point, the sky behind them was turning pewter-colored.
Day and the jungle broke nearly simultaneously. Just as it got light enough to see by, they came out of the lush vegetation into an arid foothill region, dotted with occasional clumps of stunted trees that dwindled as they went along and finally died out altogether.
"Look," he whispered almost in awe. "Look, Chris, the mountains." He saw her eyes brim with tears of exhaustion and thankfulness. He stroked her tangled hair inattentively, his own eyes sighted upward to their still remote, serried tops. "On the other side, Chris," he breathed, "on the other side of those mountains it's the twentieth century."
They stood there and they scanned the looming tilt before them for the tomb entrance, which was the only possible way through to the other side. They searched frontally first, and it was nowhere in evidence. Then over to the left as far as eye could reach. It wasn't there either; no sign of it. Then over to the right, the only direction left. Nor was it there either.
He swallowed and tried to keep his heart from going down too far. "It's got to be somewhere along there," he murmured. "We came out through there. We both remember that. That was no dream."
But what was? And what wasn't?
He tried to take bearings as best he could. "We went off the trail to the left," he said, speaking aloud to convince himself as well as her. "That means we've got the trail to our right, unless we recrossed it since in the dark without knowing it. So if we work our way back toward the right, we should come upon the tomb entrance eventually." He looked at her questioningly. "We'll take the chance, Chris, shall we? I don't want to fool you; it's just a chance. But I'm afraid if we go off to our left, we're liable to work our way blindly entirely around the inside of the valley without ever getting out again."
"Let's take the chance, Larry," she said feebly.
They retraced their way a little, first of all, to take themselves back a little deeper into the jungle cover, so that they wouldn't be so exposed to view. Then they skirted the jungle just short of the point at which it lost full density. Not that there was a hard-and-fast, razor-clean line where jungle ended and barren foothills began; sometimes the growth sent out tongues, crept fairly high up the inclined mountainside. At other times, by reverse proce
ss, there were arid strips where the jungle wall receded far back to the other side of them.
Tiredness had no meaning to them any longer, or hunger, or anything else. If they were going to succumb to fatigue, they would have succumbed long ago, when it was still new and sharp. Now it was old and dull, so old they scarcely took account of it any more. Just a glassiness of the eye, a strictiure of the stomach cords.
There was a fairly prominent outthrust shoulder of mountain they had to round, they found as they progressed. On the other side of this the succeeding line of mountains fell back considerably; there was a recession, more evident at first by a change of tint than anything else. The coloring beyond was more transparent, less opaque. Then as diey drew nearer they saw the variation was one of proximity and not shading.
Then as some certain, invisible line of longitude on the slopes beyond worked itself clear to their advancing gaze, their hands flew toward one another and clenched tightly. They saw it. It was there. The flanking projection had covered it from them until now. There was no mistaking it. They saw the artificial man-made flatness of the grooved stones framing it, leaning shghtly back in conformity with the tilt of the native rock wall. A slot, a window in the mountain. It looked awfully small, it looked awfully high up. But it was there. Every detail stood out distinct in the crystal-clear air.
They'd come out of the jungle a good half day's journey off their course. But they'd corrected it now. They were back again on course. They could see where they were going now. And they were still up on their own feet, they were still untaken, that was the main thing.
Slowly it inched abreast of them, until at last the trail itself, leading down from it, came into view. Up there it was just a rut, a fold, tucked into the mountain skin. But it could be seen, there was a lividness to it that revealed it against the topsoil pelt, as when a fine wire is drawn too tightly over something and leaves a shiny trace behind.
He stopped at last and dropped down with her behind a little hummock that looked out through spindly tree trunks. "We'll stay down below here, under cover, until we're ready," he puffed. "We're as close as we can get now without overreaching it and going too far to the other side." And this was their final rest before the final break, the dash that would carry them up, and in, and through.
The place he'd chosen gave good cover. Yet they could command the tomb entrance. And the downward trail from it had swung very close athwart their way now, entered the jungle almost directly ahead of where they lay. They were as close to it as he intended to risk going.
They lay there like two wilted, discarded tendrils, her head resting in the notch just above his hip. The safest thing of all to do, he knew, would be to wait until nightfall. But the law of diminishing returns was already in full swing against them. He didn't think their strength would hold that long.
She fell asleep, and this time he let her, wanted her to. His own eyes closed for the first time since the second night before, and it was as though there were mucilage on the lids. No sooner had they touched than they adhered. Not all the will power at his conmiand could have pried them apart again.
It seemed they'd only been like that a moment, when she was already shaking him awake. She was frightened, cautioning him even as she did so. "Larry, don't move. Look. Look up there."
Three warriors were standing by the tomb entrance. Then suddenly four. Then five. Every moment there was another one. They were coming out, one by one. A party that must have entered it in search of them was now reappearing, frustrated.
He could feel her heart pounding wildly against him. She had pressed herself close. "Can they see us from there?"
They were obviously scanning the jungle rim from their lofty perch; he could tell by the way their buckshot-sized heads moved in deadly, slow-sweeping unison.
"I don't think so."
"But we can see them. I can even see the sun flash from their knives."
"They have nothing but bare rocks for a background, they stand out against them. We have leaves and tree shadows and all sorts of other screens to deflect the aim of the eye. But lie still whatever you do, don't stir."
They started down the trail single file, the first of them already well on toward the bottom before the last had finished emerging from the tomb orifice. He counted ten of them. The warriors made a slow zigzag coming down. lengthily spaced, and at every moment danger increased, for as they descended they were being brought continuously nearer to their hiding place.
The warriors grew larger, too; from puppet size they swelled to man size, as each one passed close to them and went on to be engulfed in the static green tidal wave that was the jungle, poised but never shattering into spray high over all their heads. Brief patches of coppery skin would reappear, as if it were indeed green water they were being submerged by, and then they would be gone for good.
The last trembling leaf stilled, the last shuddering reed quieted, the downgrade trail coursed empty. Nothing but time still stirred. They were gone as though they had never been. But what reckless impunity to count on that!
Finally he gave her, indirectly, the signal that the moment had come. "Can you get all the way up there to it, do you think?"
She nodded bravely. "I can try. I'm ready."
"Once we start we'll have to go fast. We'll be in the open from here on up, no more jungle skulking. And some of them may have stayed behind, for all we know."
He stood up slowly, with an uneasy naked, defenseless feeling. "Stay down a minute longer."
She crouched submissive at his feet, flattening her hair back with both hands to get it out of her way.
Finally he nodded. She stood up beside him.
"Are you all right, Chris?"
"I'm all right, Larry."
"Say a prayer before we go."
"Out loud?"
"I don't care. I guess so."
She tilted her face a little, lidded her eyes for a moment. "Take us through. Somebody," she said fervently. "Oh, Somebody, whoever you are, be on our side for just this one time."
He stiffened his arm around her. "Take my hand," he said curtly. "Here we go."
They broke jungle at a tired sort of trot, which was the best they could muster. Again the process of exposure wasn't immediate; the jungle slowly thinned, opened out about them. Still at some indeterminate point, the area of their bodies that could be seen from
a distance was greater than the area that could not, and from then on danger had set in full force.
The going was immensely difficult for them, particularly in their weakened condition. Almost at once the ground left the strictly horizontal; at every step the angle was sharpened. It seemed to them that all the troubles of crashing through undergrowth were as nothing compared to this. Lifting the entire bodily weight taxed the wind and leg muscles far more than any intricate brambles could have.
The jungle rapidly receded behind them like an outgoing tide. Its texture seemed to knit itself togetlier, and presently it had become a smooth green pile carpet spread considerably below, unruffled as far as the eye could reach.
At about a third of the distance up, their incoming diagonal brought them onto the trail. There was no longer any added danger to be courted in following it; they were already visible off it as they would be on it; so they clove to it from then on. It made for surer footing and swifter direction than the uncharted climb about it.
They kept looking back, not both together but alternately, first he, then she. Continued silence of the one told the other each time that nothing was as yet amiss. The halfway point, indicated by a sharp turn that they had marked from below, was rapidly descending to meet them.
He felt her hand twitch convulsively in his. She had no breath to scream with. She gave a sort of choked bleat, and he knew at once before he'd even glanced back below them. Immunity had ended, and the tomb entrance was still equidistant from them to the jungle they had left behind.
The jungle edge, innocuous only a moment ago, had spewed two fast-running fi
gures, breaking away from it, starting up the serpentine trail in furious pursuit. A third broke cover in twice the space separating the first two. One or more members of the party they had seen returning not long before must have lingered behind the others, caught sight of them, raised the alarm.
They were spurred to a frenzy of threshing motion they had not dreamed was still left in them. Their one remaining chance, they knew, was to get inside the sheltering darkness of the tomb entrance before they were overtaken by the winged furies down below. He shunted her in front of him and pushed her before him, sometimes using only a steadying hand, sometimes his entire shoulder when the going was particularly steep or difficult.
She wasn't breathing any more, she was sobbing. They couldn't afford the luxury of looking behind them any more, save where a differential in the trail let them do so automatically; every turn of the head cost too much in momentimi.
The pursuers came on fast. Their legs seemed to work like pistons under them, blurred by their rapidity of motion. The gap between was closing inexorably. They were getting bigger every minute, like something onrushing in a bad dream. But the black-mouthed sanctuary above came nearer, nearer.
One last spurt to reach it. Breath a flame searing through their lungs, black motes fuming before their eyes like cultures seen through a microscope. A girl, an emaciated man, and the will to live. They couldn't have cried out. This was no time for crying out. This was only a time for living or for dying. They could only choke suffocatingly and flounder crazily upward, and upward, and upward.
Suddenly shade fell behind them, like a dark-blue guillotine blade that had just missed the backs of their heads, and they were in.
The coolness was so sharp it seemed to congeal their skins, curdle them, like some sort of etherized astringent sprayed on. They couldn't see for a minute. Gloom welled up about them like a sooty fog, and in their momentary safety was nearly their final undoing. But they had never broken contact with one another's forms, from the first moment of discovery of the pursuit, and his shoulder now was still pressed closely behind hers, carrying it forward, his arm circled to her opposite side. Joined together like that, they waded uncertainly forward through the shoals of dimness, a hoUowness to their footsteps that showed they were enclosed on four sides.
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