[2]The camp described probably occupies the site of present-day Pasadena.
[2]The camp described probably occupies the site of present-day Pasadena.
I was hustled into a hut where a slave woman gave me food and water. There was a great deal of noise and excitement outside, and through the open doorway I could hear snatches of conversation as Kalkars passed to and fro. From what I heard, I gathered that the defeat of the Kalkars had been complete and that they were flying toward the coast and their principal camp, called The Capital, which the slave woman told me lay a few miles southwest. This, she said, was a wonderful camp, with tents reaching so high into the heavens that often the Moon brushed against their tops as she made her way through the sky.
They had released my hands, but my feet were still bound and two Kalkars squatted just outside the door of the hut to see that I did not escape. I asked the slave woman for some warm water to wash my wounds and she prepared it for me. Not only that, the kindly soul saw to my wounds herself, and after they had been cleansed she applied a healing lotion which greatly soothed them, and then she bound them as best she could. I felt much refreshed by this, and with the food and drink in me was quite happy, for had I not accomplished what my people had been striving after for a hundred years—a foothold on the western coast? This first victory had been greater than I had dared to hope, and if I could but escape and rejoin my people I felt that I could lead them to the waters of the ocean with scarce a halt while the Kalkars still were suffering the demoralization of defeat.
It was while I was thinking these thoughts that a Kalkar chief entered the hut. Beyond the doorway the score of warriors that had accompanied him, waited.
“Come!” commanded the Kalkar, motioning me to arise.
I pointed to my tethered ankles.
“Cut his bonds,” he directed the slave woman.
When I was free, I arose and followed the Kalkar without. Here the guard surrounded me and we marched away between avenues of splendid trees such as I never had seen before, to a tent of the ancients, a partially ruined structure of imposing height that spread over a great area of ground. It was lighted upon the inside by many flares and there were guards at the entrance and slaves holding other flares.
They led me into a great chamber that must be much as the ancients left it, though I had seen from the outside that in other places the roof of the tent had fallen in and its walls were crumbling. There were many Kalkars in this place, and at the far end of the room, upon a platform, one sat alone on a huge, carved bench—a bench with a high back and arms.
I was led before this man. He had a thin face and a long, thin nose, and cruel lips and crafty eyes. His features, however, were good. He might have passed in any company as a full-blood Yank. My guard halted me in front of him.
“This is he, Jemadar,” said the chief who had fetched me.
“Who are you?” demanded the Jemadar, addressing me.
His tone did not please me. It was unpleasant and dictatorial. I am not accustomed to that, even from equals, and a Julian has no superiors. I looked upon him as scum. Therefore I did not reply.
He repeated his question angrily. I turned to the Kalkar chief who stood at my elbow. “Tell this man that he is addressing a Julian,” I said, “and that I do not like his manner. Let him ask for it in a more civil tone if he wishes information.”
The eyes of the Jemadar narrowed angrily. He half rose from his bench. “A Julian!” he exclaimed. “You are all Julians—but you aretheJulian. You are the Great Chief of the Julians. Tell me,” his tone became suddenly civil, almost ingratiating, “is it not true that you aretheJulian, The Red Hawk who led the desert hordes upon us?”
“I am Julian 20th, The Red Hawk,” I replied; “and you?”
“I am Or-tis, the Jemadar,” he replied.
“It has been long since an Or-tis and a Julian met,” I said.
“Heretofore they always have met as enemies,” he replied. “I have sent for you to offer peace and friendship. For five hundred years we have fought uselessly and senselessly because two of our forebears hated one another. You are the 20th Julian, I am the 16th Or-tis. Never before have we seen one another; yet we must be enemies. How silly!”
“There can be no friendship between a Julian and an Or-tis,” I replied, coldly.
“There can be peace,” he said, “and friendship will come later, maybe long after you and I are dead. There is room in this great, rich country for us all. Go back to your people. I will send an escort with you and rich presents. Tell them that the Kalkars would share their country with the Yanks. You will rule half of it and I will rule the other half. If the power of either is threatened, the other will come to his aid with men and horses. We can live in peace and our people will prosper. What say you?”
“I sent you my answer yesterday,” I told him. “It is the same today—the only peace that you and I can share is the peace of death. There can be but one ruler for this whole country and he will be a Julian—if not I, the next in line. There is not room in all the world for both Kalkar and Yank. For three hundred years we have been driving you toward the sea. Yesterday we started upon the final drive that will not stop until the last of you has been driven from the world you ruined. That is my answer, Kalkar.”
“Take him away,” cried the Jemadar. “Send this message to his people: I offer them peace on these terms—they may have all the country east and southeast of a straight line drawn from the pass of the ancients south to the sea; we will occupy the country to the west and northwest of that line. If they accept I will send back their Great Chief. If they refuse, he will go to The Butcher, and remind them that he will not be the first Julian that an Or-tis has sent to The Butcher. If they accept, there are to be no more wars between our people.”
They took me back then to the hut of the old slave woman and there I slept until early morning, when I was awakened by a great commotion without. Men were shouting orders and cursing as they ran hurriedly to and fro. There was the trampling of horses’ feet, the clank and clatter of trappings of war. Faintly, as from a great distance, I heard presently, a familiar sound and my blood leaped in answer. It was the war cry of my people, and beneath it ran the dull booming of their drums.
“They come!” I must have spoken aloud, for the old slave woman turned toward me.
“Let them come,” she said. “They cannot be worse than these others, and it is time that we changed masters. It has been long now since the rule of the ancients, who, it is said, were not unkind to us. Before them were other ancients, and before those still others. Always they came from far places, ruled us and went their way, displaced by others. Only we remain, never changing. Like the coyote, the deer and the mountains we have been here always. We belong to the land, we are the land—when the last of our rulers has passed away we shall still be here, as we were in the beginning—unchanged. They come and mix their blood with ours, but in a few generations the last traces of it have disappeared, swallowed up by the slow, unchanging flood of ours. You will come and go, leaving no trace; but after you are forgotten we shall still be here.”
Now Kalkars entered the hovel. They came hurriedly and as hurriedly departed, taking me with them. My wrists were tied again and I was almost thrown upon Red Lightning’s back. A moment later we were swallowed up by the torrent of horsemen surging toward the southwest.
Less than two hours later we were entering the greatest camp that man has ever looked upon. For miles we rode through it, our party now reduced to the score of warriors who guarded me. The others had halted at the outskirts of the camp to make a stand against my people and as we rode through the strange trails of the camp we passed thousands upon thousands of Kalkars rushing past us to defend The Capital.
We passed vast areas laid out in squares, as was the custom of the ancients, a trail upon each side of the square, and within, the grass-grown mounds that covered the fallen ruins of their tents. Now and again a crumbling wall raised its ruin above the desolation, or some more sturdily constructed structure remained almost intact except for fallen roof and floors. As we advanced, we encountered more and more of the latter, built of that strange, rock-like substance, the secret of which has vanished with the ancients.
My guard turned in beneath the high arched entrance of a mighty structure. From the filth of its spacious floor rose mighty columns of polished stone, richly variegated. The tops of the columns were carved and decorated in colors and in gold. The place was filled with horses, tied to long lines that stretched almost the length of the room, from column to column. At one end a broad flight of stone steps led upward to the second floor. After we had dismounted I was led up these steps. There were many Kalkars coming and going. We passed them as I was conducted along a narrow avenue of polished white stone upon either side of which were openings in the walls leading to other chambers.
Through one of these openings we turned into a large chamber, and there I saw again the Or-tis whom I had seen the night before. He was standing before one of the openings overlooking the trail below, talking with several of his nobles. One of the latter glanced up and saw me as I entered, calling the Jemadar’s attention to me. Or-tis faced me. He spoke to one near him who stepped to another opening in the chamber and motioned to someone without. Immediately a Kalkar guard entered bringing a youth of one of my desert clans. At sight of me the young warrior raised his hand to his forehead in salute.
“I give you another opportunity to consider my offer of last night,” said the Or-tis, addressing me. “Here is one of your own men who can bear your message to your people if you still choose to condemn them to a futile and bloody struggle and with it he will bear a message from me—that you go to The Butcher in the morning if your warriors do not retire and your chiefs engage to maintain peace hereafter. In that event you will be restored to your people. If you give me this promise yourself, you may carry your own message to the tribes of Julian.”
“My answer,” I replied, “is the same as it was last night, as it will be tomorrow.” Then I turned to the Yank warrior. “If you are permitted to depart, go at once to The Vulture and tell him that my last command is that he carry The Flag onward to the sea. That is all.”
The Or-tis was trembling with disappointment and rage. He laid a hand upon the hilt of his sword and took a step toward me; but whatever he intended, he thought better of it and stopped. “Take him above,” he snapped to my guard; “and to The Butcher in the morning. I will be present,” he said to me, “to see your head roll into the dust and your carcass fed to the pigs.”
They took me from the chamber then and led me up and up along an endless stairway, or at least it seemed endless before we finally reached the highest floor of the great tent. There they pushed me into a chamber the doorway to which was guarded by two giant warriors.
Squatted upon the floor of the chamber, his back leaning against the wall, was a Kalkar. He glanced up at me as I entered, but said nothing. I looked about the bare chamber, its floor littered with the dust and debris of ages, its walls stained by the dirt and grease from the bodies that had leaned against it, to the height of a man. I approached one of the apertures in the front wall. Far below me, like a narrow buckskin thong, lay the trail filled with tiny people and horses no bigger than rabbits. I could see the pigs rooting in the filth—they and the dogs are the scavengers of the camp.
For a long time I stood looking out over what was to me a strange landscape. The tent in which I was confined was among the highest of the nearer structures of the ancients, and from its upper floor I could see a vast expanse of tent roofs, some of the structures apparently in an excellent state of preservation, while here and there a grass-grown mound marked the site of others that had fallen. Evidences of fire and smoke were numerous and it was apparent that whatever the ancients had built of other materials than their enduring stone had long since disappeared, while many of the remaining buildings had been gutted by flame and left mere shells, as was attested by hundreds of smoke-blackened apertures within the range of my vision.
As I stood gazing out over distant hills beyond the limits of the camp I became aware of a presence at my elbow. Turning I saw that it was the Kalkar whom I had seen sitting against the wall as I entered the chamber.
“Look well, Yank,” he said, in a not unpleasant voice, “for you have not long to look.” He was smiling grimly. “We have a wonderful view from here,” he continued; “on a clear day you can see the ocean and the island.”
“I should like to see the ocean,” I said.
He shook his head. “You are very near,” he said, “but you will never see it. I should like to see it again, myself; but I shall not.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I go with you to The Butcher in the morning,” he replied, simply.
“You?”
“Yes, I.”
“And why?”
“Because I am a true Or-tis,” he replied.
“Why should they send an Or-tis to The Butcher?” I demanded. “It is not strange that an Or-tis should send me,theJulian; but why should an Or-tis send an Or-tis?”
“He is not a true Or-tis who sends me,” replied the man, and then he laughed.
“Why do you laugh?”
“Is it not a strange joke of Fate,” he cried, “that seestheJulian andtheOr-tis going to The Butcher together? By the blood of my sires! I think our feud be over, Julian, at least so far as you and I are concerned.”
“It can never be over, Kalkar,” I replied.
He shook his head. “Had my father lived and carried out his plans, I think it might have ended,” he insisted.
“While an Or-tis and a Julian lived? Never!”
“You are young, and the hate that has been suckled into you and yours from your mothers’ breasts for ages runs hot in your veins; but my father was old and he saw things as few of my kind, I imagine, ever have seen them. He was a kindly man and very learned, and he came to hate the Kalkars and the horrid wrong the first Or-tis did the world and our people when he brought them hither from the Moon, even as you and yours have hated them always. He knew the wrong and he wished to right it. Already he had planned means whereby he might get into communication with the Julians and join with them in undoing the crime that our ancestor committed upon the world. He was Jemadar, but he would have renounced his throne to be with his own kind again. Our blood strain is as clear as yours—we are Americans. There is no Kalkar or half-breed blood in our veins. There are perhaps a thousand others among us who have brought down their birthright unsullied. These he would have brought with him, for they all were tired of the Kalkar beasts.
“But some of the Kalkar nobles learned of the plan, and among them was he who calls himself Or-tis and Jemadar. He is the son of a Kalkar woman by a renegade uncle of mine. There is Or-tis blood in his veins, but a drop of Kalkar makes one all Kalkar, therefore he is no Or-tis.
“He assassinated my father, and then set out to exterminate every pure-blood Or-tis and all those other uncontaminated Americans who would not swear fealty to him. Some have done so to save their hides, but many have gone to The Butcher. In so far as I know, I am the last of the Or-tis line. There were two brothers and a sister, all younger than I. We scattered and I have not heard of them since, but I am sure that they are all dead.
“Yes, if my father had lived the feud might have been ended; but tomorrow The Butcher will end it. However, the other way would have been better. What think you, Julian?”
I stood meditating in silence for a long time. I wondered if, after all, the dead Jemadar’s way would not have been better.
Itseemed strange indeed to me that I stood conversing thus amicably with an Or-tis. I should have been at his throat, but there was something about him that disarmed me, and after his speech I felt, I am almost ashamed to say, something of friendliness for him. He was an American after all, and he hated the common enemy. Was he responsible for the mad act of an ancestor dead now almost four hundred years? But the hate that was almost a part of my being would not down entirely—he was still an Or-tis. I told him as much. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I do not know that I can blame you,” he said; “but what matters it? Tomorrow we shall both be dead. Let us at least call a truce until then.”
He was a pleasant-faced young fellow, two or three years my senior, perhaps, with a winning way that disarmed malice. It would have been very hard to have hated this Or-tis.
“Agreed!” I said, and held out my hand. He took it and then he laughed.
“Thirty-four ancestors would turn over in their graves if they could see this,” he cried.
We talked there by the opening for a long time, while in the trail below us constant streams of Kalkars moved steadily to the battle front. Faintly, from a great distance, came the booming of the drums.
“You beat them badly yesterday,” he said. “They are filled with terror.”
“We will beat them again today and tomorrow and the next day until we have driven them into the sea,” I said.
“How many warriors have you?” he asked.
“There were full twenty-five thousand when we rode out of the desert,” I replied proudly.
He shook his head dubiously. “They must have ten, twenty times twenty-five thousand,” he told me.
“Even though they have forty times twenty-five thousand we shall prevail,” I insisted.
“Perhaps you will, for you are better fighters; but they have so many youths growing into the warrior class every day. It will take years to wear them down. They breed like rabbits. Their women are married before they are fifteen, as a rule. If they have no child at twenty they are held up to scorn, and if they are still childless at thirty they are killed, and unless they are mighty good workers they are killed at fifty anyhow—their usefulness to the State is over.”
Night came on. The Kalkars brought us no food or water. It became very dark. In the trail below and in some of the surrounding tents flares gave a weird, flickering light. The sky was overcast with light clouds. The Kalkars in the avenue beyond our doorway dozed. I touched the Or-tis upon the shoulder where he lay stretched beside me on the hard floor.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I am going,” I said. “Do you wish to come?”
He sat up. “How are you going?” he demanded, still in a low whisper.
“I do not know, nor how far I shall go; but I am going, if only far enough to cheat The Butcher.”
He laughed. “Good! I will go with you.”
It had taken me a long time to overcome the prejudices of heredity, and I had thought long before I could bring myself to ask an Or-tis to share with me this attempt to escape; but now it was done. I hoped I would not regret it.
I arose and moved cautiously toward the doorway. A wick, burning from the nozzle of a clay vessel filled with oil, gave forth a sickly light. It shone upon two hulking Kalkars nodding against the wall as they sat upon the stone floor of the avenue. My knife, of course, had been taken from me and I was unarmed; but here was a sword within my reach and another for the Or-tis. The hilt of one protruded from beneath the cloak of the nearer Kalkar. My hand, reaching forth, was almost upon it when he moved. I could not wait to learn if he was awaking or but moving in his sleep. I lunged for the hilt, grasped it and the fellow was awake. At the same instant the Or-tis sprang upon the other.
He whom I had attacked lumbered to his feet, clawing at the hand that had already half drawn his sword from its scabbard, and at the same time he set up a terrific yelling. I struck him on the jaw with my clenched fist. I struck him as hard as I could strike, as he loomed above me his full eight feet. The Or-tis was having a bad time with his man, who had seized him by the throat and was trying to draw a knife to finish him. The knife must have become stuck in its scabbard for a moment, or his long, red cloak was in the way. I do not know. I saw only a flash of it from the corner of my eye as my man stiffened and then sank to the floor. Then I wheeled upon the other, a naked blade in my hand. He threw the Or-tis aside when he saw me and whipped out his own sword, but he was too slow. As I ran my point into his heart I heard the sound of running footsteps ascending the stairway and the shouts of men. I handed the sword I carried to the Or-tis and snatched the other from the fellow I had just finished. Then I kicked the puny flare as far as I could kick it and called to the Or-tis to follow me. The light went out and together we ran along the dark avenue toward the stairway, up which we could hear the warriors coming in response to the cries of our late antagonists.
We reached the head of the stairs but a moment before the Kalkars appeared. There were three of them, and one carried a weak, smoking flare that did little but cast large, grotesque, dancing shadows upon wall and stair and reveal our targets to us without revealing us to them.
“Take the last one,” I whispered to the Or-tis.
We leaned over the railing and as he smote the head of the last of the three I finished the second. The first, carrying the flare, turned to find himself facing two swords. He gave a shriek and started down the avenue. That would not do. If he had kept still we might have let him live, for we were in a hurry; but he did not keep still and so we pursued him. He reminded me of a comet as he fled through the dark with his tail of light, only it was such a little tail. However, he was a little comet. He was a fast comet, though, and we could not catch him until the end of the avenue brought him to bay, then, in turning, he slipped and fell. I was upon him in the same instant, but some fancy stayed my blade when I might have run it through him. Instead I seized him, before he could recover himself, and lifting him from the floor I hurled him through the aperture at the end of the avenue. He still clung to his lamp and as I leaned out above him he appeared a comet indeed, though he was quickly extinguished in the courtyard far below.
The Or-tis chuckled at my elbow. “The stupid clod!” he ejaculated. “He clung to that flare even to death, when, had he thrown it away and dodged into one of these many chambers he could have eluded us and still lived.”
“Perhaps he needed it to light his way to Hell,” I suggested.
“They need no help in that direction,” the Or-tis assured me, “for they will all get there, if there be such a place.”
We retraced our steps to the stairway again, but once more we heard men ascending. The Or-tis plucked me by the sleeve. “Come,” he whispered; “it is futile to attempt escape in this direction now that the guard is aroused. I am familiar with this place. I have been here many times. If we have the nerve we may yet escape. Will you follow me?”
“Certainly,” I replied.
The corpses of two of our recent antagonists lay at our feet at the head of the stairs, where we stood. Or-tis stooped and snatched their cloaks and bonnets from them. “We shall need these if we reach the ground—alive,” he said. “Follow me closely.”
He turned and continued along the corridor, presently entering a chamber at the left. Behind us we heard the Kalkars ascending the stairs. They were calling to their fellows above, from whom they would never receive a reply; but they were evidently coming slowly, for which we were both thankful.
Or-tis crossed the chamber to an aperture in the wall. “Below is the courtyard,” he said. “It is a long way down. These walls are laid in uneven courses. An agile man might make his way to the bottom without falling. Shall we try it? We can go down close to these apertures and thus rest often, if we wish.”
“You go on one side and I will go on the other,” I told him.
He rolled the two cloaks and the bonnets into a bundle and dropped them into the dark void beneath, then we slid over the edge of the aperture. Clinging with my hands I found a foothold and then another below the first. The ledges were about half the width of my hand. Some of them were rounded by time and the weather. These did not afford a very good hold. However, I reached the aperture below without mishap and there, I am free to confess, I was glad to pause for a moment, as I was panting as though I had run a mile.
Or-tis came down in safety, too. “The Butcher appears less terrible,” he said.
I laughed. “He would have it over quicker,” I replied.
The next stage we descended two floors before we halted. I like to have slipped and fallen twice in that distance. I was wet with sweat as I took a seat beside my companion. I do not like to recall that adventure. It sends the shivers through me always, even now; but at last it was over—we reached the bottom together and donned the cloaks and the bonnets of the Kalkars. The swords, for which we had no scabbards, we slipped through our own belts, the cloaks hiding the fact that they were scabbardless.
The smell of horses was strong in our nostrils as we crept forward toward a doorway. All was darkness within as we groped forward to find that we were in a small chamber with a door at the opposite side. Nearly all the doors of the ancients have been destroyed, either by the fires that have gutted most of the buildings, by decay, or by the Kalkars that have used them for fuel; but there are some left—they are the metal doors, and this was one. I pushed it open enough to see if there was a light beyond. There was. It was in the great chamber on the first floor where the horses were tethered. It was not a brilliant light, but a sad, flickering light. Even the lights of the Kalkars are grimy and unclean. It cast a pallid luminance beneath it; elsewhere were heavy shadows. The horses, when they moved, cast giant shadows upon the walls and floor and upon the great, polished stone columns.
A guard loafed before the door that led to the trail in front of the tent. It was composed of five or six men. I suppose there were others in some nearby chamber. The doorway through which we peered was in shadow. I pushed it open far enough to admit our bodies and we slipped through. In an instant we were hidden from the sight of the guard, among the horses. Some of them moved restlessly as we approached them. If I could but find Red Lightning! I had searched along one line almost the full length of the chamber and had started along a second when I heard a low nicker close by. It was he! Love of The Flag! It was like finding my own brother.
In the slovenly manner of the Kalkars, the saddles and bridles lay in the dirt in the aisle behind the horses. Fortunately I found my own, more easily, of course, because it is unlike those of the Kalkars, and while I slipped them quietly upon Red Lightning, the Or-tis, selecting a mount haphazard, was saddling and bridling it.
After a whispered consultation, we led our horses to the rear of the room and mounted among the shadows, unobserved by the guard. Then we rode out from behind the picket lines and moved slowly toward the entrance, talking and laughing in what we hoped might appear an unconcerned manner, the Or-tis riding on the side nearer the guard and a little in advance, that Red Lightning might be hidden from them, for we thought that they might recognize him more quickly than they would us.
As they saw us coming they ceased their chatter and looked up, but we paid no attention to them, riding straight on for the aperture that led into the trail outside the structure. I think we might have passed them without question had there not suddenly burst from the doorway of what was, I judge, the guard-room, an excited figure who shouted lustily to all within hearing of his voice.
“Let no one leave! The Julian and the Or-tis have escaped!” he screamed.
The guard threw themselves across the entrance and at the same instant I put spurs to Red Lightning, whipped out my sword, and bore down upon them, the Or-tis following my example. I cut at one upon my left front and Red Lightning bore down another beneath his iron hoofs. We were out upon the trail and the Or-tis was beside us. Reining to the left we bore south a few yards and then turned west upon another trail, the shouts and curses of the Kalkars ringing in our ears.
With free rein we let our mounts out to far greater speed than the darkness and the littered trail gave warrant, and it was not until we had put a mile behind us that we drew in to a slower gait. The Or-tis spurred to my side.
“I had not thought it could be done, Julian,” he said; “yet here we ride, as free as any men in all the country wide.”
“But still within the shadow of The Butcher,” I replied. “Listen! They are following hot-foot.” The pounding of the hoofs of our pursuers’ horses rose louder and louder behind us as we listened. Again we spurred on, but presently we came to a place where a ruined wall had fallen across the trail.
“May The Butcher get me!” cried the Or-tis, “that I should have forgotten that this trail is blocked. We should have turned north or south at the last crossing. Come, we must ride back quickly, if we are to reach it before they.”
Wheeling, we put our mounts to the run back along the trail over which we had but just come. It was but a short distance to the cross trail, yet our case looked bad, for even in the darkness the pursuing Kalkars could now be seen, so close were they. It was a question as to which would reach the crossing first.
“You turn to the south,” I cried to the Or-tis, “and I will turn to the north. In that way one of us may escape.”
“Good!” he agreed; “there are too many of them for us to stand and fight.”
He was right—the trail was packed with them, and we could hear others coming far behind the van. It was like a young army. I hugged the left hand side of the trail and Or-tis the right. We reached the crossing not a second in advance of the leaders of the pursuit and Or-tis turned to the south and I to the north. Into the blackness of the new trail I plunged and behind me came the Kalkars. I urged Red Lightning on and he responded as I knew he would. It was madness to ride through the black night along a strange trail at such speed, yet it was my only hope. Quickly my fleet stallion drew away from the clumsy, ill-bred mounts of my pursuers. At the first crossing I turned again to the west and though here I encountered a steep and winding hill it was fortunately but a short ride to the top and after that the way was along a rolling trail, but mostly down hill.
The structures of the ancients that remained standing became fewer and fewer as we proceeded and in an hour they had entirely disappeared. The trail, however, was fairly well marked and after a single, short turn to the south it continued westward over rolling country in almost a straight line.
I had reduced my speed to conserve Red Lightning’s strength, and as no sign of pursuit developed, I jogged along at a running walk, a gait which Red Lightning could keep up for hours without fatigue. I had no idea where the trail was leading me, and at the time I did not even know that it was bearing west (for the heavens were still overcast), though I judged that this must be the fact. My first thought was to put as much distance as possible between me and the Kalkar camp and at the first streak of dawn take to the hills and then work my way north and east in an attempt to rejoin my people.
And so I moved on, through country that was now level and now rolling, for the better part of three hours. A cool breeze sprang up and blew in my face. It had a damp freshness and a strange odor with which I was entirely unfamiliar. I was tired from my long exertions, from loss of sleep and from lack of food and water, yet this strange breeze revived me and filled me with new strength and life.
It had become very dark, although I knew that dawn must be near. I wondered how Red Lightning could pick his way through the utter blackness. This very thought was in my mind when he came to a sudden halt. I could see nothing, yet I could tell that Red Lightning had some good reason for his action. I listened and there came to my ears a strange, sullen roar—a deep pounding, such as I never had heard before. What could it be?
I dismounted to rest my beloved friend while I listened and sought for an explanation of this monotonously reiterated sound. At length I determined to await dawn before continuing. With the bridle reins about my wrist I lay down, knowing that if danger threatened, Red Lightning would warn me. In an instant I was asleep.
How long I slept I do not know—an hour, perhaps—but when I awoke it was daylight and the first thing that broke upon my sensibilities was the dull, monotonous booming, the pounding, pounding, pounding that had lulled me to sleep so quickly.
Never shall I forget the scene that burst upon my astonished eyes as I rose to my feet. Before me was a sheer cliff dropping straight away at my feet, upon the very verge of which Red Lightning had halted the previous night; and beyond, as far as the eye could reach, water—a vast expanse of water, stretching on and on and on—the sea! At last a Julian had looked upon it! It rolled up upon the sands below me, pounding, surging, booming. It rolled back again, resistless, restless, and, at once, terrifying and soothing. Terrifying in its immensity and mystery, soothing in the majestic rhythm of its restlessness.
Hungryand thirsty, Red Lightning and I set off up the canyon away from the sea, presently entering the first side-canyon[3]bearing in a northerly direction, for it was my desire to pass through these mountains in the hope of finding a valley running east and west, which I could follow back in the direction of my people.
[3]Probably Rustic Canyon, which enters Santa Monica Canyon a short distance above the sea.
[3]Probably Rustic Canyon, which enters Santa Monica Canyon a short distance above the sea.
We had proceeded only a short distance up the side-canyon when I discovered a spring of pure water and around it an abundance of fine pasture, and a moment later Red Lightning and I were drinking avidly from the same pool. Then I removed his saddle and bridle and turned him loose to browse upon the lush grasses, while I removed my clothing and bathed my body, which was, by now, sorely in need of it. I felt much refreshed and could I have found food should soon have been myself again; but without bow and arrows my chances seemed slight unless I were to take the time to construct a snare and wait for prey. This, however, I had no mind to do, since I argued that sooner or later I must run across human habitation, where, unless greatly outnumbered by armed men, I would obtain food.
For an hour I permitted Red Lightning to line his belly with nutritious grasses and then I called him to me, re-saddled, and was on my way again up the wooded, winding canyon, following a well-marked trail in which constantly appeared the spoor of coyote, wolf, hellhound, deer and lion, as well as the tracks of domestic animals and the sandaled feet of slaves; but I saw no signs of shod horses to indicate the presence of Kalkars. The imprints of sandals might mark only the passage of native hunters, or they might lead to a hidden camp. It was this that I hoped.
I had wound upward for perhaps two or three miles when I came suddenly upon a little open meadow and the realization of my wish, for there stood three of the pointed tents of slaves consisting of a number of poles leaning inward and lashed together at the top, the whole covered by a crazy patchwork consisting of the skins of animals sewn together. These tents, however, were peculiar, in that they were very small.
As I came in sight of the camp I was discovered by a horde of scrawny curs that came bristling and yapping toward me, apprising their masters of the presence of a stranger. A head appeared in the opening of one of the tents and was as quickly withdrawn. I called aloud that I would speak with their chief and then I waited through a full minute of silence. Receiving no reply I called again, more peremptorily, for I am not accustomed to waiting long for obedience.
This time I received a reply. “Go away, Kalkar,” cried a man’s voice. “This is our country. Go away or we will kill you.”
“But I am not a Kalkar. I have but just escaped them and I have been long without food. I wish food and then I will go on, for I am in search of my own people who are fighting the Kalkars at the edge of their great camp to the east.”
He stuck his head through the flap then and eyed me closely. His face was small and much wrinkled, and he had a great shock of stiff, black hair that stuck out in all directions and was not confined by any band. I thought that he must still be sitting or squatting upon the ground, so low was his head, but a moment later, when, evidently having decided to investigate my claims more closely, he parted the flap and stepped out of the tent, I was startled to see a man little more than three feet tall standing before me. He was stark naked and carried a bow in one hand and several arrows in the other. At first I thought he might be a child, but his old and wrinkled face, as well as the well-developed muscles moving beneath his brown skin, belied that.
Behind him came two other men of about the same height and simultaneously from the other two tents appeared six or eight more of these diminutive warriors. They formed a semicircle about me, their weapons in readiness.
“From what country do you come?” demanded the little chief.
I pointed toward the east. “From the desert beyond your farthest mountains,” I replied.
He shook his head. “We have never been beyond our own hills,” he said.
It was most difficult to understand him, though I am familiar with the dialects of a score of tribes and the mongrel tongue that is employed by both the Kalkars and ourselves to communicate with the natives, yet we managed to make ourselves understood to one another.
I dismounted and approached them, my hand held out toward them as is the custom of my people in greeting friends, with whom we always clasp hands after an absence, or when meeting friendly strangers for the first time. They did not seem to understand my intentions and drew back, fitting arrows to their bows.
I dropped my hand and smiled, at a loss as how best to reassure them. The smile must have done it, for immediately the old man’s face broke into a smile.
“You are not a Kalkar,” he said; “they never smile at us.” He lowered his weapon, his example being followed by the others. “Tie your horse to a tree. We will give you food.” He turned toward the tents and called to the women to come out and prepare food.
I dropped my reins to the ground, which is all the tying that Red Lightning requires, and advanced toward the little men, and when I had thrown aside my Kalkar coat and bonnet they crowded around me with questions and comment.
“No, he is not a Kalkar,” said one. “His cloak and bonnet are Kalkar, but not his other garments.”
“I was captured by the Kalkars,” I explained, “and to escape I covered myself with this cloak which I had taken from a Kalkar that I killed.”
A stream of women and children were now issuing from the tents, whose capacity must have been taxed beyond their limit. The children were like tiny toys, so diminutive were they, and, like their fathers and mothers, quite naked, nor was there among them all the sign of an ornament or decoration of any nature. They crowded around me, filled with good-natured curiosity, and I could see that they were a joyous, kindly little people; but even as I stood there encircled by them I could scarce bring myself to believe in their existence, rather thinking that I was the victim of a capricious dream, for never had I seen or heard of such a race of tiny humans. As I had this closer and better opportunity to study them, I saw that they were not of the same race as the slaves, or In-juns, but were of a lighter shade of brown, with differently shaped heads and slanting eyes. They were a handsome little people and there was about the children that which was at once laughable and appealing, so that one could not help but love them.
The women busied themselves making fire and bringing meat—a leg of venison, and flour for bread, with fresh fruits, such as apricots, strawberries and oranges. They chattered and laughed all the time, casting quick glances at me and then giggling behind their hands. The children and the dogs were always under foot, but no one seemed to mind them and no one spoke a cross word, and often I saw the men snatch up a child and caress it. They seemed a very happy people—quite unlike any other peoples who have lived long in a Kalkar country. I mentioned this fact to the chief and asked him how they could be so happy under the cruel domination of the Kalkars.
“We do not live under their rule,” he replied. “We are a free people. When they attempted to harass us, we made war upon them.”
“You made war upon the Kalkars?” I demanded, incredulously.
“Upon those who came into our hills,” he replied. “We never leave the hills. We know every rock and tree and trail and cave, and being a very little people and accustomed to living always in the hills we can move rapidly from place to place. Long ago the Kalkars used to send warriors to kill us, but they could never find us, though first from one side and then from another our arrows fell among them, killing many. We were all about them but they could not see us. Now they leave us alone. The hills are ours from the great Kalkar camp to the sea and up the sea for many marches. The hills furnish us with all that we require and we are happy.”
“What do you call yourselves?” I asked. “From where do you come?”
“We are Nipons,” he replied. “I am Saku, chief of this district. We have always been here in these hills. The first Nipon, our ancestor, was a most honorable giant who lived upon an island far, far out in the middle of the sea. His name was Mik-do. He lives there now. When we die we go there to live with him. That is all.”
“The Kalkars no longer bother you?” I asked.
“Since the time of my father’s father they have not come to fight with us,” replied Saku. “We have no enemies other than Raban, the giant, who lives on the other side of the hills. He comes sometimes to hunt us with his dogs and his slaves. Those whom he kills or captures, he eats. He is a very terrible creature, is Raban. He rides a great horse and covers himself with iron so that our arrows and our spears do not harm him. He is three times as tall as we.”
I assumed that, after the manner of the ignorant, he was referring to an imaginary personification of some greatly feared manifestation of natural forces—storm, fire or earthquake, perhaps—probably fire, though, since his reference to the devouring of his people by this giant suggested fire, and so dismissed the subject from my mind.
As I ate, I questioned Saku concerning the trails leading back in the direction of my people. He told me that the trail upon which he was camped led to the summit of the hills, joining with another that led straight down into a great valley which he thought would lead me to my destination, but of that he was not sure, having only such knowledge of the extent of the valley as one might glean from viewing it from the summit of his loftiest hills. Against this trail, however, he warned me explicitly, saying that I might use it in comparative safety only to the summit, for upon the other side it led straight down past the great stone tent of Raban the giant.
“The safer way,” he said, “is to follow the trail that winds along the summit of the hills, back toward the camp of the Kalkars—a great trail that was built in the time of Mik-do, and from which you can ride down into the valley along any one of many trails. Always you will be in danger of Raban until you have gone a day’s march beyond his tent, for he rides far in search of prey; but at least you will be in less danger than were you to ride down the canyon in which he lives.”
But Raban, the imaginary giant, did not worry me much, and though I thanked Saku for his warnings, and let him believe that I would follow his advice, I was secretly determined to take the shortest route to the valley beyond the hills.
Having finished my meal I thanked my hosts and was preparing to depart when I saw the women and children pulling down the tents to an accompaniment of much laughter and squealing while several of the men started up the canyon, voicing strange cries. I looked at Saku questioningly.
“We are moving up the canyon for deer,” he explained, “and will go with you part of the way to the summit. There are many trees across the trail that would hinder you, and these we will move or show you a way around.”
“Must you carry all this camp equipment?” I asked him, seeing the women struggling with the comparatively heavy hide tents, which they were rolling and tying into bundles, while others gathered the tent poles and bound them together.
“We will put them on our horses,” he explained, pointing up the canyon.
I looked in the direction he indicated, to see the strangest creatures I had ever looked upon—a string of tiny, woolly horses that were being driven toward camp by the men who had recently gone up the canyon after them. The little animals were scarce half the height of Red Lightning and they moved at so slow a pace that they seemed scarce to move at all. They had huge bellies and most enormous ears set upon great, uncouth heads. In appearance they seemed part sheep, part horse and a great deal of the long-eared rabbit of the desert.
They were most docile creatures, and during the business of strapping the loads to them the children played about between their feet or were tossed to their backs, where they frolicked, while the sad-eyed, dejected creatures stood with drooping heads and waving ears. When we started upon the march, the children were all mounted upon these little horses, sometimes perched upon the top of a load, or again there would be three or four of them upon the back of a single beast.
It did not take me long to discover that Red Lightning and I had no place in this cavalcade, for if we went behind we were constantly trampling upon the heels of the slow-moving little horses, and if we went ahead we lost them in a few yards, and so I explained to Saku that my haste made it necessary for me to go on, but that if I came to any obstacle I could not surmount alone I would wait there for them to overtake me. I thanked him again for his kindness to me, and we exchanged vows of friendship which I believe were as sincere upon his part as they were upon mine. They were a happy, lovable little people and I was sorry to leave them.
Pushing rapidly ahead I encountered no insuperable obstacles and after a couple of hours I came out upon a wide trail at the summit of the hills and saw spread before me a beautiful valley extending far to the east and to the west. At my feet was the trail leading down past the imaginary tent of the imaginary Raban and toward this I reined Red Lightning.
I had not yet crossed the old trail of the ancients when I heard the sound of the flying feet of horses approaching from the west. Here the trail winds upwards and passes around the shoulder of a hill, and as I looked I saw a running horse come into view and at its heels another in hot pursuit. The rider of the second horse was evidently a Kalkar warrior, as a red robe whipped in the wind behind him, but the figure upon the leading animal I could not identify at first; but as they drew rapidly nearer, the streaming hair of its head suggested that it must be a woman.
A Kalkar up to his old tricks, I thought, as I sat watching them. So intent was the man upon his prey that he did not notice me until after he had seized the bridle rein of his quarry and brought both animals to a halt not a score of feet from me, then he looked up in surprise. His captive was looking at me, too. She was a girl with wide, frightened eyes—appealing eyes that even while they appealed were dulled by hopelessness, for what aid might she expect from one Kalkar against another, and, of course, she must have believed me a Kalkar.
She was a Kalkar woman, but still she was a woman, and so I was bound to aid her. Even had I not felt thus obligated by her sex I should have killed her companion in any event, for was he not a stranger in addition to being a Kalkar?
I let my Kalkar cloak slip to the ground and I tossed my Kalkar bonnet after it. “I am The Red Hawk!” I cried, as I drew the sword from my belt and touched Red Lightning with my spurs. “Fight, Kalkar!”
The Kalkar tried to bring his spear into play, but it was slung across his back and he couldn’t unsling it in time, so he, too, drew a sword, and to gain time he reined his horse behind that of the girl; but she was master of her own mount now, and with a shake of her reins she had urged her horse forward, uncovering the Kalkar, and now he and I were face to face. He towered above me and he had the protection of his iron vest and iron bonnet, while I was without even the protection of a shield; but whatever advantage these things might have seemed to give him they were outweighed by the lightness and agility of Red Lightning and the freedom of my own muscles, unencumbered by heavy metal protections. His big, clumsy horse was ill-mannered, and on top of all else, the Kalkar’s swordsmanship was so poor that it seemed ill befitting a brave warrior to take his almost defenseless life; but he was a Kalkar and there was no alternative. Had I found him naked and unarmed in bed and unconscious with fever, it would still have been my duty to dispatch him, though there had been no glory in it.
I could not, however, bring myself to the point of butchering him without appearing, at least, to give him a chance, and so I played with him, parrying his cuts and thrusts and tapping him now and then upon his iron bonnet and vest. This must have given him hope, for suddenly he drew off and then rushed me, his sword swinging high above his head. The Flag! What a chance he offered, blundering down upon me with chest and belly and groin exposed, for his iron shirt could never stop a Julian’s point.
So wondrous awkward was his method of attack that I waited to see the nature of his weird technique before dispatching him. I was upon his left front and when he was almost upon me he struck downward at me and to his left, but he could not think of two things at once—me and his horse—and as he did not strike quite far enough to the left his blade clove his mount’s skull between the ears, and the poor brute, which was rushing forward at the time, fell squarely upon its face, and turning completely over, pinioned its rider beneath its corpse. I dismounted to put the man out of his misery, for I was sure he must be badly injured, but I found that he was stone dead. His knife and spear I appropriated as well as his heavy bow and arrows, though I was fearful as to my skill with the last weapons, so much lighter and shorter are the bows to which I am accustomed. I had not concerned myself with the girl, thinking, of course, that during the duel she would take advantage of the opportunity to escape; but when I looked up from the corpse of the Kalkar she was still there, sitting her horse a few yards away, and eyeing me intently.
“Well!” Iexclaimed; “why have you not flown?”
“And where?” she demanded.
“Back to your Kalkar friends,” I replied.
“It is because you are not a Kalkar that I did not fly,” she said.
“How do you know that I am no Kalkar,” I demanded, “and why, if I am not, should you not fly from me, who must be an enemy of your people?”
“You called him ‘Kalkar’ as you charged him,” she explained, “and one Kalkar does not call another Kalkar that. Neither am I a Kalkar.”
I thought then of what the Or-tis had told me of the thousand Americans who had wished to desert the Kalkars and join themselves with us. This girl must be of them, then.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Bethelda,” she replied; “and who are you?”
She looked me squarely in the eyes with a fearless frankness that was anything but Kalkarian. It was the first time that I had had a good look at her. By The Flag! She was not difficult to look at. She had large, gray-green eyes and heavy lashes and a cheerful countenance that seemed even now to be upon the verge of laughter. There was something almost boyish about her and yet she was all girl. I stood looking at her for so long a time without speaking that a frown of impatience clouded her brow.
“I asked you who you are,” she reminded me.
“I am Julian 20th, The Red Hawk,” I replied, and I thought for an instant that her eyes went a little wider and that she looked frightened; but I must have been mistaken, for I was to learn later that it took more than a name to frighten Bethelda. “Tell me where you are going,” I said, “and I will ride with you, lest you be again attacked.”
“I do not know where to go,” she replied, “for wherever I go I meet enemies.”
“Where are your people?” I demanded.
“I fear that they are all slain,” she told me, a quiver in her voice.
“But where were you going? You must have been going somewhere.”
“I was looking for a place to hide,” she said. “The Nipons would let me stay with them if I could find them. My people were always kind to them. They would be kind to me.”
“Your people were of the Kalkars, even though you say you are no Kalkar, and the Nipons hate them. They would not take you in.”
“My people were Americans. They lived among the Kalkars, but they were not Kalkars. We lived at the foot of these hills for almost a hundred years and we often met the Nipons. They did not hate us, though they hated the Kalkars about us.”
“Do you know Saku?” I asked.
“Since I was a little child I have known Saku, the Chief,” she replied.
“Come, then,” I said, “I will take you to Saku.”
“You know him? He is near?”
“Yes, come!”
She followed me down the trail up which I had so recently come and though I begrudged the time that it delayed me, I was glad that I might have her off my hands so easily and so quickly, for, of a certainty, I could not leave her alone and unprotected, nor could I take her upon my long journey with me, even could I have prevailed upon my people to accept her.
In less than an hour we came upon Saku’s new camp, and the little people were surprised indeed to see me, and overjoyed when they discovered Bethelda, more than assuring me by their actions that the girl had been far from stating the real measure of the esteem in which the Nipons held her. When I would have turned to ride away they insisted that I remain until morning, pointing out to me that the day was already far gone and that being unfamiliar with the trails I might easily become lost and thus lose more time than I would gain. The girl stood listening to our conversation, and when I at last insisted that I must go because, having no knowledge of the trails anyway, I would be as well off by night as by day, she offered to guide me.
“I know the valley from end to end,” she said. “Tell me where you would go and I will lead you there as well by night as by day.”
“But how would you return?” I asked.
“If you are going to your people perhaps they would let me remain, for am I not an American, too?”
I shook my head. “I am afraid that they would not,” I told her. “We feel very bitterly toward all Americans that cast their lot with the Kalkars—even more bitterly than we feel toward the Kalkars themselves.”
“I did not cast my lot with the Kalkars,” she said, proudly. “I have hated them always—since I was old enough to hate. If four hundred years ago my people chose to do a wicked thing is it any fault of mine? I am as much an American as you, and I hate the Kalkars more because I know them better.”
“My people would not reason that way,” I said. “The women would set the hounds on you and you would be torn to pieces.” She shivered.
“You are as terrible as the Kalkars,” she said, bitterly.
“You forget the generations of humiliation and suffering that we have endured because of the renegade Americans who brought the Kalkar curse upon us,” I reminded her.
“We have suffered, too,” she said, “and we are as innocent as you,” and then, suddenly, she looked me squarely in the eyes. “How do you feel about it? Do you, too, hate me worse than as though I were a Kalkar? You saved my life, perhaps. You could do that for one you hate?”
“You are a girl,” I reminded her, “and I am an American—a Julian,” I added, proudly.
“You saved me only because I am a girl?” she insisted.
I nodded.
“You are a strange people,” she said, “that you could be so brave and generous to one you hate and yet refuse the simpler kindness of forgiveness—forgiveness of a sin that we did not commit.”
I recalled the Or-tis, who had spoken similarly, and I wondered if, perhaps, they might not be right, but we are a proud people and for generations before my day our pride had been ground beneath the heel of the victorious Kalkar. Even yet the wound was still raw. And we are a stubborn people—stubborn in our loves and our hatreds. Already had I regretted my friendliness with the Or-tis, and now I was having amicable dealings with another Kalkar—it was difficult for me to think of them as other than Kalkars. I should be hating this one—I should have hated the Or-tis—but for some reason I found it not so easy to hate them.
Saku had been listening to our conversation, a portion of which at least he must have understood. “Wait until morning,” he said, “and then she can at least go with you as far as the top of the hills and point out the way for you; but you will be wise to take her with you. She knows every trail, and it will be better for her to go with you to your own people. She is not Kalkar, and if they catch her they will kill her. Were she Kalkar we would hate her and chase her away; but though she is welcome among us it would be hard for her to remain. We move camp often, and often our trails lead where one so large as she might have difficulty in following, nor would she have a man to hunt for her, and there are times when we have to go without food because we cannot find enough even for our own little people.”
“I will wait until morning,” I said, “but I cannot take her with me—my people would kill her.”
I had two motives in remaining over night. One was to go forth early in the morning and kill game for the little Nipons in payment for their hospitality and the other was to avail myself of the girl’s knowledge of the trails, which she could point out from some lofty hill top. I had only a general idea of the direction in which to search for my people and as I had seen from the summit that the valley beyond was entirely surrounded by hills, I realized that I might gain time by waiting until morning, when the girl should be able to point out the route to the proper pass to my destination.
After the evening meal that night I kept up a fire for the girl, as the air was chill and she was not warmly clad. The little people had only their tents and a few skins for their own protection, nor was there room in the former for the girl, so already overcrowded were they. The Nipons retired to their rude shelters almost immediately after eating, leaving the girl and me alone. She huddled close to the fire and she looked very forlorn and alone. I could not help but feel sorry for her.
“Your people are all gone?” I asked.
“My own people—my father, my mother, my three brothers—all are dead, I think,” she replied. “My mother and father I know are dead. She died when I was a little girl. Six months ago my father was killed by the Kalkars. My three brothers and I scattered, for we heard that they were coming to kill us, also. I have heard that they captured my brothers; but I am not sure. They have been killing many in the valley lately, for here dwell nearly all the pure descendants of Americans, and those of us who were thought to favor the true Or-tis were marked for slaughter by the false Or-tis.
“I had been hiding in the home of a friend of my father, but I knew that if I were found there, it would bring death to him and his family, and so I came away, hoping to find a place where I might be safe from them; but I guess there is no place for me—even my friends, the Nipons, though they would let me stay with them, admit that it would be a hardship to provide for me.”
“What will you do?” I asked. Somehow I felt very sorry for her.
“I shall find some nearly inaccessible place in the hills and build myself a shelter,” she replied.
“But you cannot live here in the hills alone,” I remonstrated.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Where may I live, then?”
“For a little while, perhaps,” I suggested, “until the Kalkars are driven into the sea.”
“Who will drive them into the sea?” she asked.
“We,” I replied, proudly.
“And if you do, how much better off shall I be? Your people will set their hounds upon me—you have said so yourself. But you will not drive the Kalkars into the sea. You have no conception of their numbers. All up and down the coast, days’ journeys north and south, wherever there is a fertile valley, they have bred like flies. For days they have been coming from all directions, marching toward The Capital. I do not know why they congregate now, nor why only the warriors come. Are they threatened, do you think?” A sudden thought seemed to burst upon her. “It cannot be,” she exclaimed, “that the Yanks have attacked them! Have your people come out of the desert again?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Yesterday we attacked their great camp—today my warriors must have eaten their evening meal in the stone tents of the Kalkars.”
“You mean The Capital?”
“Yes.”
“Your forces have reached The Capital? It seems incredible. Never before have you come so far. You have a great army?”
“Twenty-five thousand warriors marched down out of the desert beneath The Flag,” I told her, “and we drove the Kalkars from the pass of the ancients back to The Capital, as you call their great camp.”
“You lost many warriors? You must have.”
“Many fell,” I replied; “thousands.”
“Then you are not twenty-five thousand now, and the Kalkars are like ants. Kill them and more will come. They will wear you down until your few survivors will be lucky if they can escape back to their desert.”
“You do not know us,” I told her. “We have brought our women, our children, our flocks and herds down into the orange groves of the Kalkars and there we shall remain. If we cannot drive the Kalkars into the sea today we shall have to wait until tomorrow. It has taken us three hundred years to drive them this far, but in all that time we have never given back a step that we have once gained—we have never retreated from any position to which we have brought our families and our stock.”
“You have a large family?” she asked.
“I have no wife,” I replied as I rose to add fuel to the fire. As I returned with a handful of sticks I saw that she hugged closer to the blaze and that she shivered with the cold. I removed my Kalkar robe and threw it across her shoulders.
“No!” she cried, rising; “I cannot take it. You will be cold.” She held it out toward me.
“Keep it,” I said. “The night will be cold, and you cannot go until morning without covering.”
She shook her head. “No!” she repeated. “I cannot accept favors from an enemy who hates me.” She stood there, holding the red robe out toward me. Her chin was high and her expression haughty.
I stepped forward and took the robe, and as her hand dropped to her side I threw the woolen garment about her once more and held it there upon her slim figure. She tried to pull away from it, but my arm was about her, holding the robe in place, and as I guessed her intention, I pressed the garment more closely around her, which drew her to me until we stood face to face, her body pressed against mine. As I looked down into her upturned face our eyes met and for a moment we stood there as though turned to stone. I do not know what happened. Her eyes, wide and half frightened, looked up into mine, her lips were parted and she caught her breath once in what was almost a sob. Just for an instant we stood thus and then her eyes dropped and she bent her head and turned it half away and at the same time her muscles relaxed and she went almost limp in my arms. Very gently I lowered her to her seat beside the fire and adjusted the robe about her. Something had happened to me. I did not know what it was, but of a sudden nothing seemed to matter so much in all the world as the comfort and safety of Bethelda.
In silence I sat down opposite her and looked at her as though I never before had laid eyes upon her, and well might it have been that I never had, for, by The Flag! I had not seen her before, or else, like some of the tiny lizards of the desert, she had the power to change her appearance as they change their colors, for this was not the same girl to whom I had been talking a moment since—this was a new and wonderful creature of a loveliness beyond all compare. No, I did not know what had happened, nor did I care—I just sat there and devoured her with my eyes. And then she looked up and spoke four words that froze my heart in my bosom.