Rifles spat flame upward. A monkey released his grip on a limb and crashed downward. One was dead. But there were others, dozens of others. The trees were suddenly alive with them. In every direction, they were racing down the trunks.
How could monkeys build a ship such as the one overhead, the girl wondered. It was a ghastly nightmare.
“I’m dreaming,” she told herself. “This can’t be true!”
But it was true. She knew it was true. She knew also there was no hope to escape—this time. At other times there had been Jongor to save them.
But Jongor was not there now. She had sent him away.
A monkey leaped from a tree squarely on Hofer’s shoulders. The guide went down. So did Varsey.
As one of the creatures leaped toward her, Ann saw that, it really wasn’t a monkey. It was wearing ornaments around its hairy arms. It had on clothes.
“It’s human!” she gasped. But there was a crumb of comfort in the thought. Their captors would not be beasts.
Then Ann saw something that sickened her. The creatures had tails. They weren’t human. They were subhumans, travesties on the race.
Mercifully the girl fainted as one of the things leaped toward her.
CHAPTER VI
Bride of the Sun
WHEN Ann Hunter recovered consciousness, her mind went back to the time when it had blanked out.
She sat up and looked wildly around. She expected to find herself in the forest, with creatures that looked like monkeys but probably weren’t.
She wasn’t, in the forest: The night was gone, as a beam of sunlight slanting through a barred window showed. She was in a damp, gloomy prison cell constructed of huge blocks of stone.
Varsey was lying on a stone bench across the room from her: There was a ragged, dirty bandage around his head.
Hofer was standing at the doorway, peering furtively out through a grill in the metal door. The guide’s clothes were torn. There was a lump on his head and dried blood on his face. He looked around when Ann moved, and saw that she was sitting up.
“Are you all right?” he queried. The question was put casually. His tone showed that he was far more interested in his surroundings that he was in her.
“Y—yes,” the girl answered. “I—”
I think so. But where are we? What happened?”
“We’ve been captured by the pals of your savage friend,” Varsey snapped. “Do you mean Jongor?”
“I don’t mean anybody else. That dirty devil!”
“But he didn’t send those monkey creatures after us,” the girl defended. “He—I said something he didn’t like, and he went away.”
“And just as soon as he went away those monkeys camel,” Varsey said accusingly. “You can’t tell me that, was coincidence! He’s after us, for some reason of his own. When he failed to trick us, he sent those monkeys after us. He’s a monster! He only looks like a man. He’s not human. He gave himself away when he admitted he could control that dinosaur. No human being could do that, and you know it.”
Varsey rose to a sitting position. His bearded face was cut by lines of fear and hate.
“I’m telling you that Jongor is a monster. He’s a biological freak, of some kind. He looks like a man, but he isn’t. He evolved here in this world, and he has abilities that we don’t know a thing about.”
“But he speaks English,” the girl protested. “That proves he is what he claims to be.”
“That proves he can read our minds!” Varsey said triumphantly.
“But—but mind reading is not possible.”
“How do you know it isn’t?” he shot back. “Dinosaurs and pterodactyls are impossible, but you’ve got to admit they’re here just the same. Jongor can read our minds. That is how he is able to speak English. When we entered Lost Land, he saw us. He didn’t want us here, but before he destroyed us, he wanted to know why we came.
“So he decided to try to be friends with us, so he could find out all about us, why we came, what we wanted. After that—it would be curtains for us. He’s been living here in this forsaken hole for God knows how long. He may even be immortal. If you ask me what he’s doing, all I can say is I don’t know.”
“But I can guess! He is creating a new race—the monkey-men that we saw. He is discovering new weapons, such as that ship. When he has discovered everything he needs to know, he is going to lead his new race out of this world. He’s going to use them to overrun the whole earth. I am firmly convinced that he is the most dangerous thing alive on Earth today. It’s up to us to kill him—before he kills us!”
HORRIBLE doubts moved through Ann Hunter’s mind as she listened to Varsey. She saw the logic back of his reasoning. After all, what did they really know about Jongor? Only what he had told them. Everything Varsey had said could be true. Jongor might have been lying to them, he might have been playing with them as a cat plays with mice. In spite of his appearance, he might not be human. He might be some kind of crazy freak that had evolved here in Lost Land.
“But if he is a freak, he has to evolve from something,” the girl said. “What species does he belong to?”
“I think I can answer that,” Hofer said. “The monkeys that captured us might easily be his people. Also,” the guide continued, “a long time in the past there must have been an advanced race here in Lost Land. I never lost consciousness after the monkeys captured us. They put us in their ship and flew out over the swamp, entirely across the valley.
“When they started to land, I looked from the ship. Down below me in the moonlight I saw what must have been a great city a long time ago. For miles around, it lay below the ship. Great stone buildings, there were, broad streets. Mostly in ruins it is now. Trees are growing in the streets. The buildings have fallen.
“Great columns of fallen stone, I saw, like the columns in the temples of Karnak, in Egypt. Some lost race built a city here once. The race must have vanished, or declined in power. It is possible that this race was sub-human, but very intelligent, and that all of its people did not die.
“Perhaps they have begun to evolve again, and the creature that called himself Jongor may quite possibly have come from them.”
“See,” said Varsey. “Hofer knows what he is talking about.”
The girl said nothing. Was Jongor human? Or was he some strange freak of evolution? Had they, in searching for her lost brother, stumbled into a tremendous plot that would eventually be directed against the human race? Hofer had turned again to the grill. “Somebody is coming!” he said softly.
From the corridor outside there came the rasp of unshod feet marching over stone. But the feet kept a ragged rhythm. Whatever it was that was coming, there was more than one of them, and they kept a marching cadence that reminded Ann Hunter of a squad of soldiers.
A voice rasped a command and the sound of the marching feet stopped. A bar grated as it was withdrawn from its holding slots. The door opened. One of the monkey-men stepped through the doorway. He boomed an order in a language which Ann Hunter did not understand.
“He’s using the speech of the Blackfellows,” Hofer hissed. “He said, ‘Down, slaves; prostrate yourselves before Alcan, who comes to take you to the Great King for judging.’ ”
The guide dropped flat on the floor. Varsey slid from the stone bench where he had been lying and scrambled down beside Hofer. Ann Hunter was too startled to obey. She vaguely remembered having read histories in which barbaric peoples forced their captives to crawl before them, but she had assumed the custom had perished from the earth. Consequently the command surprised her. She did not move.
“Down!” Hofer hissed.
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly, looking defiantly at the creature that had called himself Alcan.
He was a little taller than the other monkey-men standing rigidly at attention in the corridor outside. Nor was he so hairy, but the jeweled ornaments which he wore more than made up for his lack of it. The adornments covered his arms and his chest with a glittering display
that would have been worth a fortune in the diamond centers of the world.
UNLIKE the members of his squad, Alcan wore clothes—a ragged breechclout. In one hand he held a pikestaff, which apparently was his badge of office, and in his other hand he held the tip of his bushy tail, with which he was gently tickling himself under the chin. Later Ann was to learn that Alcan owned what was regarded as the most beautiful and the bushiest, tail of all this strange people, and that he was inordinately proud of it, and of himself for possessing it.
But now she was mostly concerned with what she saw in his eyes. He was looking at her—approvingly. His black eyes were beginning to glitter. She had not obeyed his command, but there was no anger in his eyes because of that. Instead—there was something far more horrible. Suddenly conscious that her shirt was torn, that the riding breeches she wore revealed every curve of her lithe body, Ann drew back.
Alcan stepped around the two men on the floor and advanced toward her.
“Go away,” Ann whispered.
She rose from the stone bench that had served as a bed and faced Alcan.
“Stay away from me,” she said huskily. “You stay away from me. Don’t you dare touch me!”
Alcan kept coming. Step by step the girl backed away from him until she felt the stone wall at her back. She could retreat no farther.
But Alcan did not touch her. His hands went out toward her, and a scream trembled on her lips when, as though suddenly recollecting something, the fellow glanced hurriedly over his shoulder at the men of his command.
They were watching him. He stepped quickly away from the girl, but she knew that all that had saved her had been the presence of his men.
Ann shuddered. Alcan might come again, without his men, and what would she do then?
Alcan barked an order.
“He says we are to go before the Great King,” Hofer interpreted.
The two men were permitted to rise from the floor. With Ann between them, Alcan leading the way and the guard tramping alertly behind, they were marched down a long, winding corridor and into what at one time in the past must have been a very beautiful throne room.
It was a huge chamber, with tiers of stone columns rising on two sides. Shafts of sunlight filtered down from niches in the wall. Once it had been an impressive place, full of light and beauty. Now it was unspeakably dirty. There had been mosaic work on the floors, but the mosaic was broken and covered with grime. The very air was clammy and oppressive.
On a throne at the end of the chamber, surrounded by fawning sycophants, sat the Great King, an old, gnarled, rheumy-eyed monkey-man. He blinked at them, and squeaked an order.
“Crawl!” Alcan commanded, Hofer translating. “Crawl before the presence of the Great One!”
This time Ann Hunter did not mind crawling. There was a strange gladness in her heart. She was face to face with the ruler of this incredible people.
And he was not Jongor!
Ever since Alcan had said they were to meet the King, Ann had been desperately afraid she would find a gray-eyed giant looking down at her from a barbaric throne. The throne was there, all right, and it was barbaric enough, but Jongor did not sit upon it. Whoever or whatever Jongor really was, then, he did not belong to this race. Varsey and Hofer had been mistaken. Jongor was not the ruler here.
Or was he? Was this rheumy-eyed monstrosity sitting on the throne nothing more than a stooge for Jongor? Did that gray-eyed man of mystery remain in the background, pulling the strings that manipulated the puppets here in this mad world?
THE rheumy-eyed king became very excited when the three captives crawled before him. The appearance of the girl aroused him particularly. At his command, two of the guards seized her and lifted her to her feet. Then they proceeded to parade her back and forth before the throne, just as though she were a model displaying clothes before a group of prospective purchasers.
They forced her to turn, to walk slowly. Ann faced the; ordeal without flinching, although her flesh crawled each time she thought of one possible reason for the display they were forcing her to make.
What if they were offering her to this grisly king as a possible inmate of the harem he no doubt possessed! In the ancient world, slave girls had been sold in the market place. And the helpless maidens had been forced to make a similar display of themselves before their prospective buyers.
Was that the purpose of this parade? Were they showing off her good points so the king could decide whether or not he wanted her? Her face whitened with tension.
“I’ll die first!” Ann said to herself.
She watched the face of the king. The beady eyes, glittering with excitement, were wide open now. The king nodded. He spoke rapidly, in his language. The girl did not understand. The guards around the throne grinned and licked their lips. Whatever the decision of the king had been, it had found favor with them. Alcan, Ann thought, looked a little disappointed, but the others expressed great approval.
She looked down at Hofer; but the guide, stretched on the floor, was stealing glances around the room, and was paying no attention to the ruler.
Again the girl was forced to the floor, and all three of them were compelled to crawl backward away from the monstrosity on the throne. Alcan and his guards returned them to their cell.
The girl’s heart was pounding madly in her breast. What was going to be done with her? Was she going to be cast into shame? The question was burning in her mind. And Hofer had heard what the king had said. He knew what was to be done.
“Tell me quickly,” Ann whispered. “What did he say? What are they going to do to me?”
But the guide was too excited to answer her.
“Now I know the name of this race of monkey-men!” he was saying. “I should have known when Jongor let it slip. He called them the Muros. They’re really the Murians. They’re a colony of that race which perished thousands of years ago when its homeland sank under the waters of the Pacific.[1]
“Perhaps the same catastrophe that sent their homeland down under the waters, lifted up new mountains and blocked their way of escaping from Lost Land. This colony has remained here ever since. They’ve been degenerating physically and mentally. In the tens of thousands of years that have passed, their city has gone to ruin, their civilization has almost vanished.
“But they still possess some of the science of their ancestors—that airship, the vortex that is the shaking death’, the voice that comes from the air. They are the Murians, all right; no doubt about it. And they have tails, which means that the Murians must be the missing link that science has been so long seeking. And I have found them! I, Hofer, have succeeded at last—”
He broke off speaking to look at the two people. He was wildly excited, more excited than Ann Hunter had ever seen him.
His outburst of words bewildered her. They carried little meaning to her mind. And less significance. What did it matter if these monkey-men were the famous missing link? What if they were a colony of the long-lost Murians? What did their science matter? Ann wanted to know what that monstrous king had decided to do with her, and she asked Hofer pointblank.
“Oh,” he said, as if her question was of no importance. “He said that at last they had found a maiden who was a fit bride for the shining god. You are to become their high priestess.”
ANN gasped in relief.
“I thought—I—was afraid that filthy king was going to force me into a harem!”
“No. Nothing like that,” Hofer assured her. “He said you were to be the bride of the shining god.”
“But what did he mean by that? What is the shining god?”
“Oh, they’re sun worshipers. The shining god is the sun. Sun worship is one of the oldest beliefs of man. It is quite natural that we should find it here. Quite natural and logical.”
“Sun worshipers!” the girl breathed. “I am to be high priestess to the sun.” Her voice was heavy with relief. “If that is all that is going to happen to me, I don’t need to be afraid any longe
r.
I was afraid it was going to be much worse.”
Hofer looked curiously at her. For the first time Ann had his full attention. The look on his face sent a sudden spasm of fear through the girl.
“You aren’t telling me everything,” she challenged. “You’re keeping something back. What does the bride of the shining god mean?”
Hofer didn’t want to tell her. He tried to evade the question. But the girl insisted.
“Whatever it is, you’ve got to tell me,” she said, a sudden quaver in her voice. “I can take it. Only tell me what it is. This indecision is killing me.”
“It means,” said Hofer slowly, “that you are to be offered as a living sacrifice to the sun.”
“A living sacrifice to the sun!” The words roared in Ann Hunter’s ears. She was back in a world belonging to prehistory, in a time when living sacrifices were offered to placate angry gods. She was to be offered on an altar to the sun!
That was why the Murians had paraded her back and forth before the throne of their king! So that he could determine if she was sufficiently beautiful to be a fit mate for their god.
And she was undeniably beautiful. She was a splendid physical specimen. Her beauty and health had doomed her to death!
The room swam before Ann Hunter’s eyes. Her head turned in a giddy whirl. She stumbled to the wall to keep from falling. She scarcely saw the door of the room open. Only when she saw the Murians waiting there did she realize it had opened. She heard their voices.
“They have come to prepare you for your marriage with their god,” Hofer translated. “There will be feasting for days. You will be bathed and anointed with perfumes and given the choicest clothes. You will have perfect care. Slaves will wait on you. The bride of the shining god must be in perfect physical condition.”
Ann was too weak to walk. The Murians had to lead her out of the room.
CHAPTER VII
Life—for a Price
TO Ann Hunter, the days that followed were filled with growing terror. No physical violence was offered her. Her every wish was instantly gratified, if it was within the power of her attendants to do so. The attendants were Murian girls. Like the men, they had tails. They treated her with vast respect. In fact, they rather seemed to envy her because she was fit to be offered to their god, while they were not!
Jongor- the Complete Tales Page 5
