Jongor- the Complete Tales

by Robert Moore Williams

  “Well, nothing,” Rouse said uncomfortably. Overhead, the monotonous clanking continued. The Murtos were looking upward. A soft hum of apprehension went through their ranks.

  “What do you mean, you tried to talk them out of what?” Ann said again.

  Rouse wiped at the sweat drenching his beard, twisting his head sideways and brushing it against his shirt in a furtive gesture. The more he wiped the sweat away, the more it seemed to appear.

  A Murto carrying leather thongs was coming along the ledge. His eyes were on Ann and Jongor. He held the thongs aloft for all the Murtos to see. Rouse wiped more sweat from his face.

  “They kinda think that machine down there is a god,” he said. “Seems like they haven’t known how to find it for generations. But they still had memories that it had once existed, stories that they had heard from their folks or something . . .”

  “A god?” Ann whispered. The terror rising in her heart was being replaced by horror. If she had bad any doubt before, she had none now. There was only one way the Murtos placated their gods.

  “Yeah, that’s what they think. Gnomer says it is actually a kind of my machine that breaks up rock. He says the old-time Murtos used it for mining. He also says that with a few changes it can be made into a death ray that will work across hundreds of miles of space—”

  “What?” Ann whispered. The horror in her heart had existed because of what was going to happen to her and Jongor. Now she felt a touch of a greater horror. What happened to her and Jongor would happen later to thousands of other people, perhaps to millions. If the machine in the pit could be developed into some kind of a death ray!

  ROUSE nodded vigorously.

  “That’s what Gnomer says. He picked up hints of it from the legends of old time Mu, also hints that this city existed here. He flew over the place, very high, and took pictures. Then made maps from the pictures. That’s how we got here—”

  “But the ray?” Ann asked. Now, for the first time, she saw the Murto approaching with the leather thongs, and was aware of the use to which they were to be put.

  Again Rouse nodded. “Gnomer says he can peddle this thing for as many millions of dollars as he wants to ask for it. He says there are a dozen countries that will pay any price he asks.” He licked his lips as if the thought of the money made him hungry. “But I didn’t have anything to do with the rest of it.” he added.

  “What’s the rest of it?” Ann asked.

  “Oh, these monkeys . . .” Rouse’s gaze was contemptuous as he swept the ranks of watching Murtos. “They figger that when something goes wrong, they gotta offer a—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  A gasp had gone up from the watching Murtos. Turning, Ann saw that a length of cable with a huge hook on the end of it had from the darkness above. The cable was moving slowly toward them. In the dim light, the hook loomed like a huge question mark turned upside down, a question mark which seemed to ask: which way eternity?

  As she saw the hook swinging toward them, and saw again the Murto with the leather thongs making his way along the ledge, Ann suddenly realized how the hook, the thongs, the ray machine, and the huge block of black stone in the pit below were to be used.

  The thongs were to tie her and Jongor to the hook. Then, one by one, they were to be swung downward and deposited on the square of black stone, helpless victims for the sacrifice.

  Once these Murtos had tried to offer her as a bride to the sun.

  Now they had another purpose: in mind. Now she and Jongor were to be offered as sacrifices to the great god! To the disintegrator ray machine in the pit below!

  NOW she understood the dark stains on that block of black stone. The stains were obviously ancient but they had remained there as Still visible evidence of other sacrifices that had been offered on this same black altar in the long-gone, days of the hideous past of the Murtos.

  What would be the effect of that disintegrator ray on human flesh?

  The dark stains on the altar were visible evidence of the answer!

  A tremor passed over the girl. She stifled a scream in her throat, looked at Jongor.

  The giant stood quiet and impassive. He seemed to hear nothing and to see nothing. A Murto grasped each arm with hairy paws. But she could tell from the set look on Jongor’s face, that he was ready for desperate action, A little thrill of hope passed through her at the sight, Jongor was still ready to try.

  But what could he do now?

  The Murto with the leather thongs had reached them. “The girl first,” he said. “Tie her arms and legs!”

  The scream that ripped through the vast pit seemed at first to Ann Hunter to come from her own lips. Then she knew she hadn’t screamed. The ripping yell of agony and of terror had come from some other source, seemingly from up above.

  Then the girl screamed in reality as she caught a glimpse of something hurtling downward.

  It was a Murto. The monkey-man was falling from some ledge farther up in the pit, The huge hairy body twisted and turned as it fell. As the Murto flashed down, he screamed again. The vast pit echoed and reechoed the sound.

  The scream died in the hard thud of flesh meeting solid rock, died suddenly, and forever. Echoes following the scream caught, the sound of the thud flung it back and forth between the walls of the pit, creating the effect that hot one but dozens of Murtos had died here.

  The Murto with; the thongs stopped moving. His mouth hung open. Through the whole group of, watching monkey-men there ran a convulsive sob of terror.

  THEY had been waiting for a sacrifice and it had come, in the form of one of their own people falling from a great height to die on the rocky floor of the cavern. They had had a sacrifice but it had not been the one they had expected.

  Nor did they expect the wild, exultant yell that came from above: “Give ‘em hell, Yale!”

  Ann Hunter’s heart jumped. That yell could come from only one person on earth—her brother. Her scream went echoing up; the sides of the pit.

  “Alan!”

  Simultaneously, the hook and the cable, which had stopped moving, took a quick swing toward them.

  At the same split second, Jongor Wrenched himself free from the grip of the Murtos who had been holding him. In their startled horror at the sight of one of their own group taking the death plunge from up above they had momentarily forgotten about Jongor. It was the last time they would ever forget anything.

  Ann Hunter saw Jongor jerk free. She was not quite certain how he did it, but she had the dazed impression that he either hit or shoved both Murto guards at the same instant. They went off the ledge. She heard them scream, but she didn’t hear the heavy thuds come back, from below.

  Jongor moved toward her. He hit, once, with his fist, at the Murto nearest to him. The monkey-man was knocked backward into Rouse. There was a spitting squall from the Murto and a yell from Rouse as both were knocked down. Jongor did not have to hit the second Murto holding Ann. At the sigh of Jongor moving toward him, he let go the girl. Squalling and spitting, he backed away.

  A frozen silence held the vast pit. The Murtos had not yet had time to realize what was happening. Jongor was the only creature moving, and he was in action with the speed of lightning. From up above, yells of encouragement were coming.

  “Give ‘em hell, Jongor!”

  Ann felt herself caught in Jongor’s arm and lifted. The hook hung in the air a few feet away from the ledge. Below was the stone floor and certain death. The hook was still gyrating, an effort was still being made to move it closer to them, Jongor did riot wait for it to reach them.

  Holding Ann in one hand, he leaped outward.

  The girl was aware of a convulsive jerk inside her mind. She realized what Jongor was doing. Would he be able to grab the hook? Would he be able to hold on to it? She felt the jerk come as he caught the swinging hook with one hand. She held her breath.

  FOR an instant, she thought his hold was going to slip. She felt muscles tense all over his body. If his hand slipped, death
was waiting for them below. It would be a faster, quicker death than on the black altar. But—

  She felt his hand slip, then tighten. Slowly he drew himself upward, lifting his weight And hers, She got her hands on the hook too.

  “Give ’em hell, Jongor!” the voice shouted exultantly from above.

  The hook, carrying them with it, began to move upward. From all around them came an angry gasp. Prey that they had considered belonged to them was escaping from the Murtos, Ann heard a bull throat roaring, caught a glimpse of Great Orbo jumping up and down in baffled rage.

  Then the rifle began to thunder. She heard the bullets snap past her.

  “Hold on tight, Ann,” Jongor whispered. Another bullet went past: she flinched at the angry popping sound. As the hook swung, she caught a glimpse of Rouse firing at them from the ledge. Along the ledge Murtos were dancing in baffled rage, shaking their fists and screaming what they would do when next they had them in their power. Again a bullet went past them, but it was farther away this time.

  The hook swung in a great arc, moved inward, carrying them with it, dropped down to another ledge. Both felt solid stone beneath their feet. They sank down. Along the ledge, a figure was running toward them.

  “Ann! Jongor!”

  “Alan! How did you get here?”

  In the semi-darkness, the whiskered face of Alan Hunter was thin and gaunt. But a grin was showing through. “I’ve been hiding here for days. When came to, after the fight in the dark with Umber, and couldn’t find you, I came here, I knew that if the Murtos caught you they would eventually bring you here. I watched the start of that little picnic down below without realizing what was happening, until you two appeared on the ledge. They were going to use this derrick, which was once used for lifting stone from the bottom of the shaft below, to swing you onto the altar.” He gestured toward the throng on the ledge far below.

  ROUSE was still looking upward, seeking for a target for his rifle. At the bottom of the pit, Gnomer was frantically turning the nozzle of the ray disintegrator of the ancient Murians. Howls of rage from the Murtos filled the vast pit with a hollow, booming sound.

  “Let’s get out of here, quick,” Ann whispered.

  “No,” Jongor said. “Alan, give me that spear.” He did not wait for an answer from the youth. Instead he took the heavy spear from Alan’s hand.

  “What do you mean, Jongor? What are you going to do?” Alan said.

  Holding the spear in one hand, he swung his body up into the hook.

  “Drop me down there!” he gestured toward the bottom of the vast shaft.

  “No, Jongor!” Ann screamed.

  Jongor gestured downward with the spear. “We’ll never get out of Lost Land if we leave that bunch in a condition to follow us.”

  “But—what can you do about it?

  There are hundreds of them.”

  Quickly he explained what he was going to try to do.

  Ann stood mute and silent, too paralyzed to speak,

  “If you say so,” Alan Hunter said soberly. “But you’re taking a terrible chance.”

  “I say so,” Jongor said. “Surprise will be on my side.”

  “All right, then.” Slowly, Alan Hunter set in motion the machinery that operated the huge derrick.

  GNOMER, crouching at the controls of the ray disintegrator, heard the thunder of rage coming from the Murtos swell to a mighty chorus. For once, even his alert brain did not have an answer to the problem confronting him. Even after Ann and Jongor had vanished upward, he did not begin to guess what had happened. His guess was that some stupid Murto, assigned to the job of operating the lifting equipment, had made a mistake and had taken the intended victims upward instead of lowering them to the altar, as custom and tradition demanded.

  “Damned stupid monkeys!” He cursed the whole Murto tribe with feeling and enthusiasm. On the ledge that circled the pit, he was aware that they were screaming and yelling at him. While he did not understand much of the Murto language, he got the idea that they were cursing him with equal feeling and enthusiasm. Not until then did it dawn on him that they were blaming him for what had happened. He could see Great Orbo jumping up and down and screaming at the top of his powerful lungs.

  Gnomer began to get uneasy. But the rifle was in the operating compartment beside him. A heavy pistol was bolstered at his belt. If the Murtos chose to blame him for what had happened—well, he was sure the rifle would make them change their minds. If the rifle didn’t do the job . . . His fingers moved over the controls of the machine.

  “Kill him!” he heard Great Orbo yell.

  Gnomer was not really concerned about the Murtos. They would be enraged for a while, then they would prudently forget the matter. The problem that was giving him concern was what had happened to Jongor and the girl. Intuitively, he recognized in the jungle giant a deadly enemy. Gnomer knew that he would never feel certain of getting out of Lost Land as long as Jongor was alive. With his knowledge of this disintegrator, which he could certainly peddle for any price he chose to ask, and with the other wealth that was available here, he would be the richest man on earth, if he could get out alive.

  His mouth watered at the thought. He imagined the homes he could buy, the cars he could own, the women he could possess! Wealth beyond the dreams of Midas would be his!

  Neither the Murtos nor Jongor would ever stop him from getting out!

  A rifle suddenly exploded on the ledge. He jerked his head in the direction from which it had come; saw that the Murtos were attacking Rouse. He snatched his rifle up and fired once into the tangle of bodies.

  BEFORE he could fire again, he saw Rouse seized, lifted into the air, pitched bodily from the ledge. Rouse screamed like a Murto as he went down. And as with the Murto, the scream went into sudden silence in the heavy thud of breaking bones and crumpling flesh.

  Gnomer stared at the dark blob of matter that had once been Rouse. There had been a man named Rouse once. Now Rouse was lying over there, a bundle of broken flesh. Like heat-lightning along the horizon, fear flickered through Gnomer. Then he felt better. With Rouse gone, he would not have to split his take from Lost Land. Everything he could find here in this place would belong to him.

  “To hell with him,” he though. “He was nothing but a stupid fool anyhow. I’m better off with him gone.”

  Above him, something moved.

  He caught a glimpse of the moving object out of the corner of his eye, turned his head upward.

  “Jongor!” he screamed.

  Jongor was directly over the machine, As Gnomer saw him, he released his hold on the hook and dropped. As lithe as a jungle cat, he landed on top of the machine. Gnomer saw the blade of the spear in Jongor’s hands.

  Gnomer did not have time to turn the rifle and bring it to bear on Jongor. He knew the spear would be driven completely through him before he could get up the gun. What he did was leap in one startled convulsive jump out of the machine to the stone surface below.

  He landed on his feet, stumbled, fell, hit and rolled to a fitting position. The rifle was still clutched in his hands. He brought it up.

  To Jongor, it almost seemed as though the man had melted away from the hard-driven point of the spear. The blade, with the strength of his lunge behind it, crashed into the back of the control slot of the machine. The stout shaft cracked.

  Gnomer was rolling on the floor. In a headlong dive Jongor went after him. A bullet roared past him, smoke blinded him: he struck the muzzle of the rifle with one hand.

  “Damn you!”

  Jongor’s groping hands found Gnomer. His weight rolled the man backward. Gnomer was like a wildcat, his muscles were coiled steel springs, released now under the impetus of fear. The man got both feet under Jongor, kicked violently upward.

  Even a professional wrestler would have been hard-put to take the blow of those feet. But the man Gnomer was fighting was not a professional wrestler. He was a man who had grown up in the jungle, who had lived his whole life by his wits
and his strength. The violent upward kick knocked Jongor off Gnomer, the blow gave him a feeling of nausea in his stomach, but it did not knock him out.

  TWISTING himself, he threw his body back at Gnomer. The man twisted, turned, tried to evade the charge. Jongor landed on Gnomer’s back. His hands went under the man’s flailing arms and locked tight at the back of his neck. For an instant Gnomer threshed wildly, then there was a sharp crack, as of something breaking Gnomer’s body went limp.

  His neck was broken.

  Jongor rose to his feet. One menace was ended. This man had come to Lost Land seeking something. What he had found here was his death.

  As Jongor rose to his feet, from far above came a yell.

  “Look out, Jongor!”

  Jongor did not have to look far to see the source of the danger row confronting him. From openings in the walls of the pit, the Murtos were streaming, waving clubs and uttering screams of rage. There was no possible way to mistake their intention.

  Seeing Jongor and Gnomer fighting, they had thought their chance had come. With the two humans battling each other, it would be easy to overwhelm both of them.

  They meant to obliterate Jongor from the face of the earth. For years he had been “a thorn in their bushy hides; for years he had taunted and defied them. They had tried many times to catch and kill him. Always he had eluded them. Now was the hour of their vengeance. By some super-miracle he had escaped from becoming a sacrifice to the long-lost god of the pit, but he would not escape from them!

  “Beat him to death!”

  “Knock out his brains!”

  “Stamp his guts into the rock!”

  “Let me have him!”

  “No, me first!”

  When Jongor arose from Gnomer, they hesitated, an instant.

  “Get him!” Great Orbo screamed. “He is only one, we are many!”

  The charge, which had hesitated momentarily, continued with renewed fury. Great Orbo was in the lead. His fanged mouth wide open, he was uttering shrill cries indicating what he intended to do to Jongor.