We four started out together, but soon Anina left us to make her way to Tao's house alone. Mercer, Miela and I then hurried as fast as we could through the city down to the marshlands, and to the secluded spot on the bayou's bank where the boat was lying.
The bayou here was about a hundred feet wide, a winding, brackish stream, lined on both sides with trees whose roots were in the water and whose branches at times nearly met overhead. Its banks were a tangled mass of tree roots, huge ferns, palmettos and some tall upstanding kind of water grass. Half submerged logs jutted out into the sluggish current, making it in places seem almost impassable.
A narrow metal boat—a very long and very narrow motor boat with a thatched shelter like a small cabin over part of its length—lay fastened to a tree near at hand. I noticed at once some mechanism over its stern.
We had come up quietly to make sure no one was about. Now we hid ourselves close to the boat and waited with apprehension in our hearts for the arrival of Anina with Tao's men.
Half an hour, perhaps, went by. The silence in this secluded spot hung heavy about us. A fish broke the glassy surface of the water; a lizard scurried along the ground; a bird flitted past. Then, setting our hearts pounding, came the soft snapping of underbrush that we knew was the cautious tread of some one approaching. I was half reclining under a fallen tree, with a clump of palmettos about me. I parted their fronds carefully before my face. A few yards away a man was standing motionless, staring past me and apparently listening intently.
He moved forward after a moment. I feared he was coming almost upon us, but he turned aside, bending low down as he crept slowly forward. Sounds in the underbrush reached me now from other directions, and I knew that the men had spread apart and were stalking the boat, expecting Mercer to be in or near it.
Had they all come down here? I wondered. And where was Anina? I looked down at Miela warningly as I felt her move slightly.
"We'll wait till they're all near the boat," I whispered to Mercer.
I saw Anina a moment later soaring over the bayou just above the tree‑tops. I sighed with relief, for it was a signal to us that everything was all right. We continued to wait until the men had all come into view. They went at the boat with a sudden rush. Several of them climbed into it, With shouts to the others.
With a significant glance to Mercer I leaped suddenly to my feet. I was perhaps twenty feet from the boat, and the space between us was fairly clear. A single bound landed me beside it, almost among four of the men who were standing there in a group. Before they had time to face me I was upon them.
I scattered them like nine‑pins, and two of them went down under my blows. The other two flung themselves upon me. I stumbled over some inequality of the ground, and we all three fell prone. This was the first time I had come actually to hand grips with any of the Mercutians.
I felt now not only their lack of strength, but a curious frailness about their bodies—a seeming absence of solidity that their stocky appearance belied. These two men were like half‑grown boys in my hands. I was back on my feet in a moment, leaving one of them lying motionless. The other rose to his knees, his face white with pain and terror.
I left him there and looked about me. Miela was fluttering around near by, as I had instructed her—just off the ground and with the whole scene under her eyes. It was she on whom I depended for warning should any of the quarry attempt to escape us.
At the edge of the water another man was lying, whom I assumed Mercer had felled. There was a great commotion from the boat. I ran toward it. A man was standing beside it—an old man with snow‑white hair. He stood still, seeming confused and in doubt what to do. As I neared him he turned clumsily to avoid me. I passed him by and bounded over the boat's gunwale, landing in its bottom. The first thing I saw was Mercer struggling to his feet with four of the Mercutians hanging on him. One had a grip on his throat from behind; another clutched him about the knees.
The two others let go of him when they heard me land in the boat. One had evidently had enough, for he dived overboard. The other waited warily for my onslaught. As I got within reach I hit at his face, but my blow went wild. He hit me full in the chest, but it was the blow of a child.
At that instant I heard Mercer give a choking cry, and out of the corner of my eye saw him go down again. I could waste no more time upon this single antagonist. The man had his hands at my throat now. I seized him about the waist and carried him to the gunwale. He clung to me as a rat might cling to a terrier, but I shook him off and dumped him in the water.
I turned to Mercer just as he was struggling to his feet again, and in a moment more between us we had felled his two assailants. Mercer's face was very white, and I saw blood streaming from a wound on his head; but he grinned as he faced me.
"Have we—got 'em—all?" he gasped. He dashed the blood away from his eyes with the flat of his hand. "I fell—damn it—right at the start, and hit my head. Where are they all? Have we got 'em?"
Miela alighted in the boat beside us.
"Two are running," she said. "They are together. Hasten."
We jumped out of the boat. Miela flew up, and we followed her guidance through the dense woods. We could make much better speed, I knew, than the Mercutians. "We'll get them all, Ollie," I shouted at Mercer. "They're not far ahead. See up there—Miela's evidently over them now."
We came up to them after a few hundred yards. It was the old man, and one of those whom I had first encountered. They did not wait for us to attack them, but stopped stock still, flinging their arms wide in token of surrender.
Miela came down among us, and we went back to where we had lain hidden in the palmettos. There we had left a number of short lengths of rope. While we were tying the arms of these two prisoners behind them and fettering their ankles so they could not run Anina joined us.
"Two—in water," she cried; and then added something to Miela.
"Two were in the water. Now they are in the woods, running. Anina will show you."
Miela stood guard in the boat over our first two prisoners, while Mercer and I rounded up the others. It was half an hour or more before we had them all trussed up, but none of the ten escaped. We were a long time reviving two of those we had injured, but finally we had them all lying or sitting in the boat.
Mercer's head had stopped bleeding. He washed it, and I found his injury no more than an ugly scalp wound.
"I fell and cut it on something," he explained lugubriously. "Couldn't see for the blood in my eyes. But we got 'em, didn't we?"
Under Miela's direction Mercer and I shoved the boat out into the stream. I need not go into details regarding the propelling mechanism of this craft. Miela explained it hastily to me as we got under way. It used a form of the light‑ray from a sort of strange battery. The intense heat of the ray generated a great pressure of superheated steam in a thick metal cylinder underneath the keel.
This steam escaped through a nozzle under water at the stern of the boat, and its thrust against the water propelled the boat forward. The boat was constructed to draw very little water, and when going fast its bow planed upward until only the stern of the hull touched the surface. It was steered by a rudder not much different from some of those types we are familiar with on earth. When we got out into open water I found the boat was capable of great speed. This I attributed not so much to the efficacy of its propelling force as to the lightness of the boat itself. It was built of some metal that I may perhaps compare with aluminium, only this was far stronger and lighter. The boat was, in fact, a mere shell, extraordinarily buoyant.
Miela sat in the stern, steering and operating the mechanism. I sat with her. Mercer was farther forward, beside Anina, talking to her earnestly. Our prisoners lay huddled in various attitudes—frightened, all of them, and obviously in no condition to give us further trouble. They were, I saw now, not ruffians by any means, but rather men of superior intelligence, selected by Tao evidently as those best fitted for spreading his propaganda among the people of the Great City.
We made slow progress down the bayou. Some of its turns were so sharp and so overhung with trees, and obstructed by fallen logs, we could hardly get through. During the latter part of the trip the bayou broadened rapidly, dividing into many channels like a delta.
We came out into the open sea finally—a broad, empty expanse, with a mirrorlike surface. The curvature of the planet was even more apparent now; it seemed almost as though the water should be sliding back downhill over the horizon.
We turned to the left as we came out of the delta, and for the first time Miela put the boat to the limit of its speed. The best comparison I can make, I think, to this rapid, noiseless, smooth progress, is that of sailing on an iceboat.
We sped along some five or ten miles, keeping close inland. I saw some of the small thatched shacks along here, though not many. For a while the shore remained that same palm‑lined, half‑inundated marshland. Then gradually it began to change, and we came upon a broad beach of white sand.
We landed here, and found the girls with the platform waiting for us. Miela took Anina and one or two of the older girls aside, and gave them last instructions.
"What do I do—just dump them on the other shore?" Mercer asked me.
"That's about it. I don't know the lay of the land over there. Anina does. You do what she tells you."
"You bet I will," he agreed enthusiastically. "Some kid—that little girl. We get along fine. She understands everything I say to her already. I'll have her talking English like a streak by the time you see her again."
We had removed the cords from our prisoners' ankles. I motioned them to get out of the boat. We crowded Tao's men on the platform. They were surprised, and some of them alarmed, when they saw how we proposed to transport them over the water. Miela silenced their protests, and soon we had them all seated on the platform, with Mercer at the rear end facing them.
The fifty girls grasped the platform handles. Another moment and they were in the air, with Mercer waving good‑by to us vigorously.
Miela and I, left alone, watched them silently as they dwindled to a speck in the haze of the sky.
We were about to start back when we saw a girl coming toward us, flying low over the water. One of those we had directed to patrol the coast, Miela said when she came closer. She saw us, and came down on the beach.
The two girls spoke together hurriedly.
"Tao's men in the Water City have caused great disturbance, Alan," Miela said to me.
"Where's the Water City?"
"Near the Great City—across the marshlands. We must get back. And when Anina and our friend Ollie have returned we must go to the Water City. It is very bad there, she said."
Our trip back to the Great City was without unusual incident. We followed the main route at the best speed we could make.
"We shall tell our king, of course, about this disturbance," said Miela. "Perhaps he will think there is something he can do. But I fear greatly that unless he appeals directly to the people, and they are with him—"
"He's an old man," I said, "and all his councilors are old. They're not fit to rule at such a time as this. Suppose he were to die—what would happen? Who would be king then?"
"A little prince there is—a mere child. And there is our queen—a younger woman, only married to our king these few years. His first queen died."
I questioned Miela concerning her government. It was, I soon learned, an autocracy in theory. But of later years the king's advanced age, and his equally old councilors whom he refused to change, had resulted in a vacillating policy of administration, which now, I could see plainly, left the government little or no real power.
Only by constantly pandering to the wishes of the people could the king hold his throne. The supreme command was held by the king and his aged councilors. At stated intervals the more prominent men of each city met and enacted laws. The cities were each ruled by a governor in similar fashion, paying tribute to the central government somewhat after our old feudal system; but for practical purposes they acted as separate nations. They were united merely by the bonds of their common need of defense against the Twilight People, and of intermarriage, which was frequent, since the virgins, flying about, often found mates in cities other than their own.
There were courts in each city, not much more than rude tribunals, and jails in which the offenders were held. The police I have already mentioned. They, like the king's guards, were inclined in an emergency to do, not so much what they were ordered, as what they thought the people wished.
It was all very extraordinary, but like many another makeshift government it served, after a fashion.
Hiding the boat in another bayou, we took our way home on foot. That is to say, I ran, and Miela followed me, alternately flying and walking. We made our best speed this way, and very soon were back at home in the Great City.
We crossed the garden and entered the front door, expecting to find Lua in the living room, but she was not there. The house was quiet.
"She would wait up, she told me," Miela said, and, raising her voice, called her mother's name.
There was no answer, although now I remember I thought I heard a footfall upstairs.
We went up to Lua's room hurriedly. It was empty, and our loud cries of anxiety throughout the house evoked no response. We entered our own bedroom, and before I could make a move to defend myself I was seized tightly by both elbows from behind.
At the same instant an arm hooked around my neck under my chin and jerked my head backward, and another pair of arms clutched me around the knees. I struggled vainly to free myself, shouting to Miela to run.
But there were too many holding me. A moment more and my arms were tied behind me and a rope was about my legs. I was pushed into a chair, and as I sat down I saw Miela standing quietly near by, with two Mercutians holding her by the arms and shoulders.
The man who had pushed me to the seat bent down and struck me across the cheek with the flat of his hand. His grinning, malevolent face was only a few inches from mine. I saw that it was Baar!
There seemed to be five of our captors, all of them as evil‑looking men as I think I have ever seen. They rummaged about the room, evidently in search for weapons they thought I might have secreted. Then they ordered me to stand up, and without more ado led Miela and me from the house.
This was once when I was glad of the interminable daylight. I hoped we might find some early risers about the streets, for I thought certainly the time of sleep must now be nearly over. But no one was in sight as we left the garden. We turned the first corner and headed toward the base of the mountain.
"To Baar's house they are taking us, I think. It is on the marshland below." Miela spoke without fear of our captors understanding the English words. We took advantage of this until after a moment we were roughly ordered to be quiet.
Lua, we thought, must have been taken away before we arrived; we would find her at Baar's house when we arrived there. We had come down to the level marshlands now, the outskirts of the city, and were passing along a path between occasional shacks. Before us, standing alone in a rice paddy, I saw a larger, more pretentious house—a wooden structure on stilts, with a thatched roof, which Miela said was where Baar lived.
We went in single file up its board incline, and entered a squalid room with matting on the floor, a rude charcoal brazier at one side, and the remains of a previous meal lying on a table.
Two women were in the room as we entered. I took these to be Baar's wife and a servant. Two naked little children lay on the floor, one of them crying lustily.
Baar glanced around as he came in, and with what I took to be an oath ordered the children removed from the room. The slave woman—I could see she was a slave by the band upon her arm—picked them up. Evidently she did not move fast enough to suit Baar's temper, for as she straightened up the man cuffed her upon the head. She stumbled to one side against Baar's wife, who was standing there, and the other woman, with a sharp imprecation, struck her full in the breast.
Neither of them saw the look she gave as she shuffled away, carrying the infants; but I did. It was a look of the most intense hatred, born and nourished, I realized, by long ill‑treatment.
Miela and I were now bound securely hand and foot, and Miela's wings were lashed to her body. Thus rendered entirely helpless, we were laid together in a corner.
From the talk that followed Miela gathered that Baar and his men were expecting the arrival of others. He roughly ordered his wife—a woman of the Twilight Country, obviously—to clear away the remains of their last meal and bring other food. She obeyed submissively.
This, the first of the Twilight Country People I had seen, was a thick‑set woman of perhaps thirty‑five, although she might have been older, for her black hair, which fell in an unkempt mass to her waist, was beginning to gray. She wore a single garment, a pair of silken trousers, drab with dirt. Her clipped wings were covered in the usual way.
I could see now why Miela had said these Twilight women could not fly, for this woman's torso was fat and flabby. Her skin was curiously pale—a dead, unpleasant white. Her face was broad, heavy and unintelligent. Her eyes were large and protruded slightly.
Baar and his men ate breakfast, paying no further attention to Miela and me. Suddenly Miela spoke in a frightened whisper. "They are going now in a moment to the castle. The king they will kill!"
It was evidently a widespread plot we now overheard. Baar's followers had for some time been talking quietly with the lower classes, and, finding they could count on their support, planned now to murder the king. Then with the queen and the little prince held as hostages, they expected that the men of science, threatened also with a revolt of the peons, would release the light‑ray.
The light‑ray once in his control, Baar could make himself king. It seemed an absurd hope, but such was the plan they were now discussing. And what was far worse, I could see no way by which I could prevent the attempt.
"They are going to the castle—now—to murder the king?" I whispered, incredulous.
"Yes," Miela answered. "So they plan. Now—in a moment—before the time of sleep is over."
"Isn't he guarded? Can they get in the castle without arousing others?"
"There are the guards—a few. But Baar has promised them great wealth, and they will stand aside and let him pass. So it is arranged."
The arrival of several other men interrupted our whispered conversation. Baar, his meal over, consulted with them hurriedly. He then instructed his wife to watch us, and after a moment they all left the house.
The woman, who was now the only occupant of the room with us, shuffled about, clearing away the meal. I tried desperately to work my hands loose; I even tried with my teeth to gnaw Miela's bonds, but without success. Every moment counted, if we were to do anything to save the king. I wondered again where Lua was—perhaps in another part of the house here, bound as we were.
"Miela," I whispered, "ask for food. Tell her we have had nothing for many hours. Perhaps she will loosen our bonds a little to let us eat. We may be able to do something then."
The woman answered Miela's pleading by setting us up side by side, with our backs against the wall. She placed food before us, and then, with a knife, cut the cords that bound our arms.
My heart leaped exultantly; but, instead of leaving us and going on with her work, she sat down just out of reach, holding the knife in her hand and watching us narrowly.
"We must eat, Miela," I said, using as casual a tone as I could and pointing to the food smilingly. "Eat, and pretend not to notice her. Perhaps I can get to my feet."
We ate the food she had given us. I tensed the muscles of my legs, and believed that, bound as I was, I might be able to leap forward and reach the woman. It was almost hopeless to attempt it, for I realized she would meet my body with the dagger point.
We were still eating, and I was thinking over this plan, when the slave woman appeared silently in a doorway across the room, behind the woman who faced us. Something in her attitude made me look away again casually and go on with my eating.
Miela had evidently not noticed her.
The slave woman came slowly toward us. A moment later she hurled herself upon Baar's wife from behind. At the same instant I threw myself forward, falling prone, but within reach of the seated woman. I gripped her with my hands, fumbling to catch her wrists, but before I could succeed she toppled forward and fell partly over me.
I heard Miela give a cry of fright. I struggled free and raised myself up to a half‑sitting position. Baar's wife lay beside me dead, with the slave woman's knife buried to the hilt in her back.
Reaching over, I took the knife from the dead woman's fingers, and with it cut the cords that bound my ankles. I sprang to my feet. The slave had retreated and stood shrinking against the side of the room, terrified at what she had done. I paid no more attention to her for the moment, but hastened to release Miela.
We searched the house hurriedly, calling to Lua; but she did not answer, nor could we find her. When we returned the slave woman was still standing where we had left her, staring with horrified eyes at the body of her mistress.
"Tell her what she did was right," I said. "She may have saved the king. Tell her to go to your house and wait for us."
The woman nodded eagerly when Miela told her what to do, and fell on her knees before us.
"She says she will serve us always. She has been very badly treated, Alan."
We sent the woman away, and with a last hasty glance around hurriedly left the house alone with its single dead occupant. A large wooden mortar and pestle, used for pounding rice, stood in the kitchen. I carried the pestle away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy—an excellent weapon.
We hastened up through the city—Miela half walking, half flying, and I carrying this bludgeon and running with twelve‑foot strides. But it was now hardly more than three‑quarters of an hour since we had passed this way before, and there were still few people about to see us. Baar and his men had started some twenty minutes before us, I figured, and we must reach the castle before them.
I made extraordinary progress over the level country. But I could not run uphill for long, and soon had to slow down to a walk. Miela kept closer to me now. We approached the castle grounds.
"Where will the guards be, Miela? We must avoid them if we can. They might try to stop us."
Miela did not know where they would be; but under the circumstances, as Baar had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the vicinity. This conjecture proved to be correct. The guards, not wishing to be concerned in the affair at all, had simply disappeared. We saw nothing of Baar and his men on the way up the mountain, although I had hoped we might overtake them.
As we passed hurriedly through the palm gardens surrounding the castle I saw its huge front doors were closed.
"Miela, we can't get in that way. A side entrance—or some other way—"
"I know," she said. "There is a smaller door below, and others on the side."
We hastened on. Suddenly I gripped Miela by the arm.
"What's that—over there—see, beyond the grove?"
There seemed to be furtive figures lurking among the palms.
"Those cannot be Baar's men, Miela—there are too many. What can it—"
We had reached a little doorway under the front terrace. There was no time to investigate these advancing figures. Baar and his men might already be inside the castle.
I slid through the doorway, every muscle tense. Miela had brought the knife from Baar's shack, and with it clenched in her hand was close beside me. I wanted to make her stay outside, where she could fly away if danger threatened, but she pleaded to follow me, and I let her come. I needed her, since I had no idea of the interior arrangements of the building.
We passed along a dim hallway and up a narrow flight of stone steps. Not a sound came to us; the interior of the castle was silent as a tomb. At the top of the steps we came almost directly into the inner patio of the building. Across a bed of tall flowers, nodding gently in a little morning breeze that swept down from above, I saw the head and shoulders of a man standing in the center of the courtyard; the lower part of his body was hidden by the flowers. I tried to duck out of sight, but he had seen me.
He was not over forty feet away. I stepped back, believing I could reach him in a single leap; but Miela held me.
"Not you, Alan. He would cry out. The noise would bring others." She raised her knife, and her eyes blazed into mine. "Never have I thought to kill a human. But now I—a woman—must kill. Stand quiet, Alan."
She flew swiftly up and poised over the man. He had started toward us. Evidently he was, so far, as anxious for silence as we, for he made no sound. I saw now he was one of those who had come to Baar's shack. His naked shoulders, his thick neck, and bullet head were all that showed above the flower stems as he plowed his way through them directly toward me; but the hand he swung aloft to aid his progress held a knife.
He glanced up at Miela, poised in the air above him, and saw the weapon in her hand. At this new enemy he stopped, confused.
Miela swooped down at him, and he struck at her with his knife; but she avoided it with an incredibly swift turn, and a second later had passed him and was crossing the courtyard.
Round and round she flew, her great wings flapping audibly, a giant bird circling its prey. The man turned continually to face her. Several times she swooped toward him, and as swiftly avoided his blow. From every side she threatened. The man stood now bewildered, striking wild in a frenzy, as one strikes at a darting wasp. At last, with an agonized cry, he turned and ran. Instantly she dropped upon him; there was a flash of her white arm; the man's body crumpled and lay still among the flowers.
Miela was back beside me. Her breast was heaving; her eyes were full of tears; she trembled.
"A terrible thing, Alan, my husband, for a woman to do; but it had to be."
I pressed her hand with silent understanding.
"Come, Alan," she said. "They will have heard his cry. The others—we must meet them, too."
"We must get to the king. I—"
A vibrant scream rang out from the silence of the house—a man's voice, shrill with agony—then suddenly stilled.
"Good God, Miela! The king—where is he? Take me there."
She pulled me back through the doorway. A man scurried past. I leaped at him and struck him a glancing blow with the heavy wooden pestle. He stumbled to his knees. Without thought of giving quarter, I hit him again before he could rise. He sank back, senseless or dead.
Miela was ahead of me, and I ran after her along a hallway. The sound of scurrying footsteps sounded from overhead; a woman screamed.
A broad, curving stairway fronted us. I passed Miela halfway up, and, reaching the top, ran full into another man who darted from a doorway close by. The impact of my heavier body flung him backward to the floor. I leaped over him with a shout of warning to Miela, and ran on into the room.
A man was standing stock still in its center. It was Baar. He flung his knife at me as I appeared, but it went wild. Two other men were coming toward me from opposite sides of the room. I swung the bludgeon about me viciously, keeping them away. Suddenly Baar shouted a command, and before I could reach any one of them they had scurried away like rats.
A low bed with a huge canopy of silk stood against the wall. A woman knelt on the floor beside it, and against her knees huddled a little half‑grown boy.
I heard Miela's voice shouting in her own language. The sound of men running came from below. Then Miela's half‑hysterical laughter, and then the words: "They are running away, Alan—all of them. I have been calling you to bring me the light‑ray. And they are running away."
I turned to the bed, pushing its curtains aside, and then hurriedly closing them again with a shudder.
Miela was beside me.
"The king is dead, Miela. No—you must not look."
Her eyes widened; her hand went to her breast.
"There is one who needs you." I pointed to the woman on the floor.
She was staring at us, unseeing, one arm flung about the child protectingly, holding him partially under one of her long, sleek red wings. The fingers of her other hand clutched convulsively at the bed coverings; she was moaning softly with a grief and terror all the more intense because it was restrained.
"There is one who needs you, Miela," I repeated. "Comfort her—for we have come too late."
The castle now was in thorough confusion. Several waiting maids rushed into the room, stared at their mistress and the little prince, and, seeing what had happened, stood silently wringing their hands in fright, or fled aimlessly through the halls. One of the king's councilors had come in, stopping, bewildered, at the scene that met him.
"Tell him what has occurred, Miela," I said.
There came now faintly to my ears from outside the castle sounds of a gathering crowd—murmurs and vague muffled shouts. The cries grew louder. A rain of missiles struck the castle; a stone came through a near‑by window, falling almost at my feet. All at once I remembered the lurking figures we had seen among the palms in the garden.
"Miela!" I cried. "Hear that, outside! A crowd is gathering. The men we saw—out there! People whom Baar has—Miela, ask him, for God's sake, to tell us how we can get weapons. Where are the other councilors? Send for them. We must do something—now, at once. This is revolution, Miela—don't you understand? Revolution!"
I felt so impotent. Here in this crisis I could talk to no one but Miela—could issue no direct commands—could understand the words of no one but her.
Suddenly, from over our heads, a great, solemn deep‑throated bell began tolling.
"What is that? What does that mean?"
A girl rushed into the room.
"It is the bell of danger," said Miela quickly. "The girls are ringing it to arouse the city. Up here then will the people hurry to find out what it is that threatens."
"They're outside now," I retorted. "Order all the king's councilors here at once. Find out if any guards are about the place. Send them here. Where is the head of the city's police? Send him here to me! Tell him to call out all his men."
What was I saying? I had forgotten the one vital thing!
"Miela! The light‑ray! These men of science who guard it, where are they? Send for their leader. Get him here to me at once—we must have the ray!"
Miela stood very quietly beside me. Her face was white; her eyes blazed, but she seemed calm and unfrightened.
"He will come," she said, "and armed with the ray. The bell will bring him. Your other commands I will see are obeyed."
The old councilor, who had been standing by, dazed, came slowly forward at Miela's call. The king's councilor! And all the others were like him. The king was dead, and here was the little prince huddled in his mother's arm! Realization had been slow in coming, but now it broke upon me like a great light.
I flung the bludgeon away from me, and stood erect.
"Miela," I cried, "tell him—tell them all—their king is dead. It isIwho command now. There is no one else—and I have the power. Tell them that. It is I, the man from earth, who commands!"
Image 5
The solemn bell continued pealing out its knell; the shouts and tumult outside were growing louder. Miela spoke hurriedly to the old man, then turned to leave the room.
"Your commands shall be obeyed, my husband," she said quietly.
I felt again that sudden sense of helplessness as I saw her leave.
"Be careful, Miela. Order every one in the castle to the roof. Here! Tell the queen before you go. Send every one up there with me. The mob may come in. We'll make our stand up there."
I understood Baar's plot better now. He had gathered his mob of peons to surround the castle and make a demonstration in his favor. Then, with the king dead and the queen and her little son held by him and his men—their lives as forfeits—he hoped to be able to treat with the men of science who controlled the light‑ray, and who, I did not doubt, represented the better element among the people.
It seemed a mad plan at best; and now that it had gone wrong, I wondered what Baar would attempt to do. Evidently he and his henchmen had all left the castle, fearing the light‑ray, which Miela pretended I held. They were outside now, among the mob, I assumed. Would the mob attempt to enter?
Miela hurried away to send every one inside the building to its roof. The queen, following Miela's commands unquestioningly, took the little prince by the hand and, signing to me to follow, led me upstairs.
There was only one stairway leading to the roof, I found with satisfaction, and it was narrow—an excellent place for defense. The roof was broad and flat, flanked at the ends by two towers which rose considerably above it.
It was a frightened little group who gathered about me—the queen and her son, two of the king's councilors, and perhaps half a dozen young girls whom I took to be the queen's attendants. Others came up each moment.
I sat the queen down on a little white stone bench in the center of the garden, and bowed before her respectfully. Then I smiled upon them all. I think they were reassured and trusted me, and I found my commands were obeyed without question.
The queen was a woman of perhaps thirty‑five—tall and slender, with black hair and eyes. She was dressed in a single garment of heavy white silk, a dress that fell ungathered at the waist from above her breast under the arms to her ankles. It was, I judged, her sleeping robe. Her hair hung in two long braids over her shoulders; her feet were incased in sandals.
She was unquestionably a beautiful woman. I remember my vague surprise, as I saw her, with her son by her side, and her long sleek wings unmutilated. And then I saw that her wings were fastened together in two places by little metal chains. She, then, like other married women, was not permitted to fly, although the beauty of her wings was unspoiled.
I sent two of the old men to stand by the head of the stairs. Miela had given me her knife, and I handed it now to one of them, trying to make him understand that he was to bar the passage of any one who should not be allowed up. He shuddered, but he took the knife and stood where I indicated.
The crowd in the garden below had seen us on the roof now, and the tumult of shouts was doubled. I went to the parapet and looked over.
The garden was full of a struggling, confused mass of people. Those nearest the castle were mostly peons. I noticed men and a few women armed with various implements of agriculture, and any sort of rude weapon they could obtain. They were standing about in little groups or rushing excitedly to and fro in aimless, uncommanded activity.
Many of them held stones in their hands, which occasionally they cast at the building. It was one of those mobs that gather ready for trouble, is swayed in almost any direction by any chance leadership, and most frequently accomplishes nothing.
I felt a sudden sense of relief. The garden was rapidly filling up with men and women of the more intelligent classes, who mingled with the others, learned what had occurred—for I did not doubt but that the knowledge of the king's death had spread about—and then stood waiting to see what would happen.
The air was full of excited girls flying over the castle. A few alighted for a moment on the roof, but I did not fear them. Where was Baar? I could not hope to distinguish him among the crowd, but still I saw no sign of his leadership. Had he seen the failure of his plan and, fearing the results of his regicide, fled the vicinity? I hoped so fervently.
As I showed myself at the parapet a great shout arose. Some of the men—I knew at once it was those who had heard I possessed the light‑ray—scattered in terror at my appearance. I determined then, if no issue were raised that would demand my using this supposed weapon, I could continue to command the situation.
I stood there a moment looking down. At the edge of the crowd I saw a few figures whom I took to be members of the city's police. They were standing idle, taking no part in what was going on. There seemed nothing I could do until Miela returned. If only I could speak to the crowd! I wondered if I dared descend among them and disperse the mob of peons. I went to the head of the stairway. Three or four of the king's councilors were standing there.
There was no one on the stairs; evidently every one living in the castle was now on its roof—some thirty of them altogether. The crowd outside quite evidently had no present intention of entering the building. The mob of peons Baar had gathered were greatly in the minority now, and I felt that matters were steadily improving. I wondered where Miela was, and then while I was standing there I saw her coming up the stairs, a man following close behind her.
I think I have never been so glad to see any one as I was to see her at this moment. Her face was grave; her demeanor calm, as before.
"He is here," she said as she came to the head of the stairs. "This is Fuero, Alan, leader of the men of science, who have the ray."
As he came out onto the roof I saw this man was easily the most dominant personality I had so far encountered on Mercury. He was tall for his race, although several inches shorter than I, a man of sixty, perhaps, with iron‑gray hair falling long about his ears.
He wore sandals and a pair of the usual knee‑length, wide‑cut trousers. But what distinguished him in his dress was a broad panel of heavy silk, hanging from neck to knee, both in back and front, with an opening at the top through which his head was thrust. This silken panel was some eighteen inches wide, light gray in color, and richly embroidered in gold in various designs. It hung free, except for a slight fastening at the waist line. Beneath it the man's naked torso—and his bare arms—showed powerfully muscled.
His face was smooth shaven, with strong, regular features. I noticed, too, there was a slight cleft in his square chin. His forehead was high, his blue eyes kindly, yet with a searching, piercing quality about them.
It was not so much the man's general appearance as his bearing that made me realize he was a forceful character. There was about him unmistakable poise. I knew at once he felt his power, his authority. That he would use it wisely I could not doubt.
He stood regarding me gravely—an appraising regard under which I felt myself flushing a little. Miela spoke to him swiftly, and he inclined his head to me by way of introduction, his glance meanwhile taking in the scene on the roof.
With Miela as interpreter we held a hurried conversation. I learned then that Fuero and his associates had many years before organized a society for the development of the light‑ray in its various forms. They had soon realized in their experiments its diabolical power of destruction, and had taken oath then that they would not use it, or allow it to be used, except under the most critical circumstances of the nation's welfare.