"Perhaps, aye," said Robur. "So be it. I shall send the message as Zitu's Mouthpiece directs. As for the rest, I like it not."
Turning, he stalked from the room with a gloomy face.
To himself, Croft admitted perforce that his plan was in the nature of a somewhat desperate chance. Yet he believed that he had read the Zollarian spirit aright—felt assured that he was predicting Helmor's actions correctly, when the final issue should be his to face, that he had erected his counter move on a firm foundation of human nature—was counting not overmuch on the mental attitude to be induced by the menace of a fiery dissolution rained down upon defenseless heads out of space.
Returning with the assurance that he had despatched a messenger with his orders, Robur found him no whit less firm in his resolution, and they discussed all details attendant on the departure of the blimps through the further course of the night.
Morning ushered in three days of well-nigh ceaseless toil, of practise with the giant aircraft by day—of an overhauling of them, a correcting of minor faults by night, of consultations with the fliers in which every step of the expedition was explained to them by Croft—of a grooming and testing of the six planes that were to accompany the monster dirigibles north.
Mutlos of Cathur sent back word the first day that the galley for Niera had put forth. That same night Croft and Robur visited the wireless tower, and Croft demonstrated his signaling-flash.
The man, trained to receiving and sending, read the code with little trouble, transcribing more than one message correctly and then flashing them back to Croft. Then, seating himself again at his key, he sent word to Zitra that the expedition was about to set forth.
There followed two more straining days wherein Croft gave it out that only four blimps would be taken, and those manned by the crews that showed the greatest aptitude in their work. Four, he had decided, would be enough for the venture, and at dawn on the morning of the fourth day they rose like monstrous glistening bubbles above Himyra's walls, and pointed their blunt noses north.
Three days to Niera, to reach which the swiftest galley took five. So he had planned it. And at Niera he would descend. Long before he had taken the necessary steps for that—sending what apparatus he would require to the capital of Mazhur—that it might be ready for any need.
The night before had seen the airplanes depart for Scira on the first leg of their flight. From there they would go to Niera, and there the entire expedition would once more meet.
Three days, he thought, as he watched Himyra drop away beneath him with the gaping, cheering crowds that had gathered to see the blimps depart. Three days and four were seven. A day at Niera, to overhaul any weakness that might have developed in the flight across the Central Sea, a half day to the northern borders of Mazhur, the last jump, before the final hop off for the planes. And from there to Berla—four hundred miles or a trifle over. He allowed eight hours for that.
Higher and higher soared the blimps. A strong wind raged about them, bucking the roaring kick of the propellers. Higher yet, he gave command. Higher and still higher, seeking a favorable current, higher and higher, until it was found—then north—north—where once more as always the lodestone of Naia of Aphur's being drew him—north and north. He was going north at last!
The thought fired him. There was no sense of motion. Even as in the astral body, it was as though he himself stood silent and all beneath him moved. Overhead the monster gas-bag glinted like a thing of silver under the Sirian ray. Below him lay the no longer yellow ribbon of the Na, framed in the green band of the irrigated lands.
To the north the Central Sea showed sparkling in the morning sunshine. And beyond the Central Sea was Mazhur—and beyond Mazhur—Naia—Naia and Jason, Son of Jason—captive in a hostile land. And Naia's hair was golden—as golden as the sunshine that glinted now on his flashing armor—and her eyes were as blue as the blue stones upon his breast, marking out in flawless outline the Cross of Life Eternal—the Cross Ansata—and Azil's wide-stretched wings.
A wonderful, a mighty, a vast exaltation of the spirit seized him. He was going to her, borne swiftly out across the Central Sea on a favoring wind, as though Zitu himself had filled the lungs of his Omnipotent purpose, and were wafting him on his mission of salvation with a strong, beneficent blast.
Purposely he had placed the wireless operator aboard the blimp under command of Rob. That night they exchanged signals—flashing message and answer between them, as the tireless engines roared. The moons of Palos rose and turned the Central Sea to indigo and silver—glinted on the monster racing-bags. Far down, their shadows raced across the tossing waves beneath them, like the shadows of weird clouds.
Far off—a blot on the glinting waters—a galley showed. Croft found himself wondering just what emotions the sight of the four huge aircraft might cause aboard. At least he was sure the moons of Palos—those moons by whose light he had first held Naia of Aphur in his arms and kissed her—had never before beheld a similar sight. For a long time after he had ceased signaling to Robur's blimp he sat brooding, staring off across the moon-burnished surface of the waters which showed on every side.
And then, wrapping himself in a robe, since the night was chill at that elevation, he laid himself down and after a time, to all appearances, he slept.
In reality, he came to earth as he had come the night on which he had decided on the step upon which he had now set forth. He came and roused me and told me all that had occurred on Palos during the intervening months since we had spoken together last.
And the thing fired me, woke in me an intense desire, so that as he paused I cried, "Croft, let me be present—let me see the end of the thing, at least."
He smiled. "Man," he said, "I knew you'd say that, and the thing will be at night, three, four, five—six nights after this. Listen for my call then, Murray, and after that—you'll have to shift for yourself."
I nodded. "Just the same, I'll stick pretty close to you," I declared.
"You can do it in the shape you'll be in," he retorted, smiling. "On the last hop off from just south of Helmor's country, I'll be aboard a plane. Rob knows his work, and he'll captain the blimps. They'll slip over Berla after dark and light up the buildings fronting the palace square. There is a bit of country outside the city that I'll make just about dusk, and land. From there when I see the light of the fire, I'll simply zoom up over the walls and alight in front of Helmor's doors—or that's the way I've got it planned. So you see it's lucky you're going to be capable of speedy motion, Murray, if you expect to go along."
"But see here," I objected, "won't it be pretty risky coming down outside the city, like that?"
He shook his head. "You haven't quite learned Palos yet, Murray. I'll hit a tract of uninhabited country, of course. If I were a Zollarian, I could pull the same stunt in the desert outside Himyra's walls. Now, do you understand?"
I said I did, and he left me. And that is the way in which I came to witness the ending of the duel between Zollaria and Tamarizia, but more particularly between Kalamita and Jason, the Mouthpiece of Zitu, I shall endeavor to describe.
Of what intervened during the next five days I know of course only by hearsay. Briefly, Croft made Niera on time, and came down. The airplanes—five of them, that is—arrived. The other had come to grief and been compelled to remain behind. He did not wait for it, but pressed on. The final stopping-place was reached.
Croft, to Robur's horror, made use of a parachute with which he had equipped each ship, and dropped safely to the ground. Robur sailed into the north, and Croft, waiting until the planes had filled their fuel-tanks for the final stage of the journey, rose to follow just after the noontide hour of prayer.
Afterward he told me that the thing held a strange significance for him at the time. There was a prayer in his heart as the plane soared up swiftly—a prayer for success and the safety of those he loved—and he knew that, back in Himyra, Gaya was praying in a similar fashion for Robur, for Naia and Jason, and himself. And he knew that, even if in less definite fashion, the same prayer was in the heart of the nation whose manhood drove the blimps before him—one of whose daring sons controlled the rising plane on which he rode.
The hour of prayer. Eight hours he had allowed himself to cover the last four hundred miles. If nothing went wrong he would come in sight of Berla about dusk—and he would keep the blimps in sight, of course. One hour, two, three passed with the steady drone of the motur in his ears—four, five, six. Another, and the blimps paused and began a majestic circling.
Berla was in sight from their greater elevation, and twilight was falling. Across it he winked his signal—and was answered by a responsive flash. The plane fled on, swerving to one side to find the spot where it should lie waiting. Like a great bat swooping, it sank and went skimming across the darkening landscape, seeking a place to alight. In the end it grounded far out beyond the now shadowy outlines of Berla's walls.
Croft leaned back in his seat. Briefly he spoke to his pilot and seemed to rest, sagging inside his supporting straps. But, as aboard the blimp that first night, his spirit sought the chamber beneath Helmor's palace—found Naia and Jason on the couch together watching the blue girl of Mazzeria, who was busy weaving patterns out of straws. Naia of Aphur—and Jason, Son of Jason—on this night of all nights—safe!
Croft opened his eyes and lifted his body more stiffly in its seat. "Zitu—I thank thee," he whispered, raising his face to the now night-darkened heavens, and then—he sent the call for which I was listening on earth.
Berla of Zollaria. It lay there, huge, dark, slumbrous, safe; secure as the night pall wrapped it in all, seeming, undisturbed by any alarm of danger—unapproached by any force of foes. For what could harm Helmor's city, behind its darkly outlined walls? Four hundred miles of mountain, plain, and desert lay between it and the Tamarizian border—and as yet, save for the sending of a delegation to parley, Tamarizia had not moved. Dark, silent, it lay, save for where on either side of one of its many gates, the fire urns flared.
And yet on the darkened terrain beyond them crouched the squat, wide-winged shape of the Tamarizian plane, with its two men, watching, watching. And somewhere—high above it rode the blimps, of which there was no sign. Yet they were there, and the plane was squatted, watching—and they were things that, swifter than any method known to Zollaria's craft—swifter than the swiftest racing gnuppas—could cross mountain and desert and plain.
Then suddenly—without sound, so high they rode—from out of the blue-black void of the heavens—there showed a winking light. Ruddy it was as a falling star—as it glowed briefly and vanished like a fading spark. And yet, seeing it, one knew that under cover of the darkness, before the moons of Palos wheeling up like racers of the night revealed them, the blimps were stealing in.
Once more the ruddy pin-point winked, twice, thrice, and vanished, and as it faded for the last time it was answered by Croft himself from the plane. Briefly his torch glowed and was extinguished and the spot in the heavens did not appear again. Only Jason spoke to the flier. "Be ready, Avron."
And the man replied, "Aye, lord," climbed into the pit of the fuselage, and began strapping himself in place.
Croft followed suit. The two men sat staring out towards the walls of Berla, where the fire urns still made flickering flares against the gates.
And that was all. Save for their breathing, the whisper of the night wind round them, there was no sound. Silent as death itself was the blimps' approach, and as unsuspected, until presently an arc of silver appeared above the eastern horizon, and up shot the first of the twin Palosian moons.
Its upflung rays fell on a wondrous sight. They struck against the giant dirigibles, turning them into slowly drifting things of silver—huge, unbelievable, weird as the moonlight struck upon them, like monstrous dream shapes—unthinkable bubbles wafted forward on some unsensed breeze. So they must have burst upon the startled sight of Berla's people, first, soaring high above the city, circling as though in search of some definite spot, before they paused, appeared to hover for an instant, and began settling down.
"Zitu!" Avron whispered tensely under his breath.
"Aye," said Zitu's Mouthpiece as though in answer. "Watch ye now, Avron—watch."
Down, down sank those mighty glistening shapes from the Palosian skies—down, down until at length without seeming cause they checked their descent, and hung gently swaying, until a strange red brilliance leaped up high over Berla's walls.
"Go now—in Zitu's name," Croft spoke to his pilot.
The motur roared—the huge plane quivered, seemed to shake off the lethargy of its waiting, trundled forward, gained headway, tilted, and rose.
Up, up in a reaching slant, Avron drove it toward the growing radiance before it. And then, like a kite striking home upon its prey, it swept above Berla's ramparts and plunged down beneath the moon and flame-illumined gas-bags, toward the leaping fires.
They leaped, they blazed, those fires spreading in a ruddy band of destruction before Helmor's palace. They smoked. The wind of night caught that smoke and swept it off across the city in twisting, writhing streamers and billows, like the tatters of a trailing shroud. For an instant it half veiled the racing plane, and Avron coughed. Then the machine burst through it and swam above the square already beginning to fill with a running, shouting, wildly gesticulating mob, beyond which on the steps of the palace itself showed a body of the palace guard.
The fire struck off ruddy flashes from their massed cuirasses and helmets, pricked out the livid color of their saffron plumes. A captain lifted a sword and pointed toward the hovering gas-bags with a glinting blade. The roof of a house crashed down roaring in a fiery dissolution, casting up a myriad of sparks against the smoke pall of the major conflagration, from which a sickly, unsteady light was filling all the square, casting flickering shadows over the jostling mass of the panic-stricken crowd.
Above that scene the airplane swam with a chattering motur. The milling masses heard it and lifted their faces toward it in a fresh alarm. It turned. It circled back.
"Down," Croft spoke to Avron. "Land me before the guard."
Avron nodded, worked with his controls briefly. The plane tilted, circled again at a lower level—and suddenly with deadened engine volplaned with the steady-winged swoop of a hawk toward the wide expanse of pavement, to trundle forward and pause.
Before it the guard shifted uneasily, watched its slowing advance with widened eyes and paling faces, a slight backward movement of their ranks.
Not so the captain, however.
"By Bel—he has given one of them into our hands at least. Upon them!" he roared, and drew his sword to lead them in an overpowering charge.
"Hold!" Croft rose in his place and faced the quick, forward surge of the guardsmen. "Naught has Bel given thee, captain. Wherefore spare thy praises. By design are we come among thee—for speech with Helmor. Put up thy sword."
The firelight glinted on him as he left the plane and sprang lightly to the ground. It shone on his burnished harness, it struck upon his azure plumes. It pricked out the design of the Cross Ansata and the widespread wings of Azil on his cuirass. And suddenly the captain lowered the point of his weapon in a startled recognition.
"Thou?" he stammered.
"Aye," said Jason gruffly. "I, Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu—to hold speech with Helmor, as thou hast already heard. I Jason of Tamarizia—the one man who may save Berla from destruction—by whose order what remains once that fire has burned itself to embers—may be spared. Go say as much to Helmor, and say also that I wait a meeting with him—here."
Followed a tense moment, in which quite plainly the Zollarian debated his course, turning his glance from Croft to the slowly swinging menace of the moonlighted blimps above him—those glinting shapes so remote, so detached in their cold, almost frost-rimmed seeming—and yet as the man before him said the cause of the ravening flames in whose light that man appeared.
And as though sensing his thought, Tamarizia's Mouthpiece spoke again:
"Think not that save by my order any part of Berla will be spared—neither thou, nor Helmor, nor any of her people. That ye behold done here may be done elsewhere, Zollarian captain."
"By Bel—" The captain sheathed his sword. Seemingly the situation was too much for him to handle unaided. "Restrain the people," he directed a lieutenant. "Hold him securely and in safety until I have seen this carried to Helmor's ears."
The lieutenant saluted. Turning, the captain ran flashing up the stairs. His subordinates growled a command. The guardsmen advanced, split, moved off right and left, formed a cordon about the plane and Jason, facing outward toward the crowds in the square with leveled spears.
Time passed. Jason of Tamarizia stood motionless with folded arms. The people of Berla pressed up to the very spear points, shrieking and mouthing. The conflagration roared.
And then the palace doors opened. Helmor and Helmon appeared. Slowly and without any sign of undue haste they descended the steps until nearly at the foot they paused.
The Zollarian monarch and Tamarizia's strong man stared into one another's eyes, and Helmor caught a body-filling breath.
"So," he said, "it is thou. Word I had of thy presence, yet hardly it seemed thou hadst dared."
Not a line of Jason's set expression altered as he replied, "Wherein Helmor had right. Naught have I dared indeed. If Helmor doubts it, let him use his eyes. Let him gaze on yonder fire, and lift his vision to the skies. There may he behold the cause in those engines with which I have come upon him, by which Berla shall ere morning lie in ashes, save I and I only give the word that it be spared. Wherefore I dare naught in standing thus before him, to offer him the safety of himself and people. What would it profit Helmor to bid his guardsmen seize me, and thereby lose his one remaining chance of safety? Has he any means with which he may combat them—any cover beneath which he shall lie safe from a rain of unquenchable fire?"
Helmor hesitated in his answer—hesitated even as those who know that they are lost. And indeed he must have known it in that instant as he lifted his eyes to the heavens and beheld there the unbelievable creations brought against him too remote for any resistance within his power to reach them, yet near enough to bring swift death upon himself and his people, as witnessed by the blazing wall of the city, at the foot of the palace square. And in that bitter moment of realization Helmor of Zollaria's spirit must have writhed.
Now was humiliation come upon him—upon him who had sought to bring it upon others in his time. Staggered by the appalling swiftness of it, he found no words with which to meet the situation. And as he lowered his glance and forced it back to that of the man before him, Croft spoke again.
"Nor Berla alone, O Helmor. These things be not of my seeking, nor of Tamarizia's design. Yet if I return not scatheless from this meeting, not only Berla but all Zollaria as well shall burn. If I return not safely that begun this night shall certainly continue, and Tamarizia shall hurl her total strength against a treacherous nation which seeks by unlawful methods to further her ends. And in that day Zollaria as a nation shall go down in a red ruin, from which she shall not rise.
"We sought not war, O Helmor, nor aught save only peace. Twice have you loosed your strength against us—and twice has it proved vain. Yet again you planned our undoing—and this third time you struck not as a man against men, but against the innocent, the weak and helpless—seeking through them to win what had been failed of through force of arms. Helmor of Zollaria struck not at the heart of a man as he hoped to Zollaria's and his own profit. But now must he face strength again.
"Yet even so we come not in war against thee or thy nation, save in so far as it be needful to prove resistance vain. War we make not against the defenseless, the weak, nor wish to—and we hold it a thing for sorrow, were the helpless, the innocent, to perish for Helmor's or another's sin. Wherefore we come before thee and offer thee peace, O Helmor—a peace which Helmor needs but say the word to win."
"Thy price? Name the ransom of Berla, Mouthpiece of Zitu." Suddenly Helmor appeared to find his tongue. His voice rose hoarsely. "By Bel, I would not see my people burn."
"Helmor knowest," Croft said slowly, "I but require of thee my own. Let Naia of Aphur and the blue girl, her attendant, and Jason, Son of Jason, be brought forth and placed unharmed aboard the machine Helmor sees before him."
"And afterward?" Croft's utterly controlled demeanor, the mildness of his demands, seemed in a way to disturb Zollaria's monarch, appeared to excite the suspicion of some hidden trap in his mind.
"Nay, nothing," the Mouthpiece of Zitu returned. "Have I not said that I come not in vengeance upon thee? Hark ye, Helmor, I am not driven by any such intent as that of the woman who having led thee into this position now plans to cast thee from a throne. Yet, if ye yield not, by Zitu, whose Mouthpiece men name me—thy throne itself and all it stands for shall be destroyed."
Helmor started. Croft's intimate knowledge of a plot against his tenure of his power seemed to shake him well-nigh as deeply as all else. He stood silent, once more lost to all seeming in a gloomy consideration, into which broke the rising voices of the crowd. For they too had heard from their places outside the ring of threatening spears in the hands of the guardsmen, and now they cried to him, "O Helmor—yield to him—grant him his demands nor seek to resist him, O Helmor. Let not Berla be destroyed!"
Those cries beat into his ears a very surge of plaint and entreaty. And hearing it Helmor threw up his head and turned to Croft.
"This is the sum of your requirement, Mouthpiece of Zitu, which being granted, shall lead to nothing else?"
"Aye, by Zitu, on the word of Jason," Croft assented quickly, making the words both agreement to Helmor's query and an oath.
"O Helmor—" Once more the plea of a panic-stricken people.
For a moment Zollaria's ruler gazed out across their terror-whitened faces. And then he yielded, lifting a hand and upflung arm to calm them. "Peace. Helmor bows to thy wishes in this matter. Go, Helmon, son of Helmor, thyself bring forth the women and the child."
"O Helmor. Hail Helmor! All praise to Helmor by whom we are preserved!" In swift transition from plaint to plaudits once more came the voice of the crowd. "Helmor the Wise One—the guardian of his people! O Helmor! Aye, aye, Helmor—give them to him!"
They surged forward, lifting their hands in acclaiming gestures as Helmor turned and began to mount the steps.
He had won, won! For an instant as the Zollarian prince climbed upward, Croft found himself unnerved. He had won the desperate venture. A few moments, a few heart beatings only, and he would look into Naia of Aphur's eyes, might rest his hand, if so he wished, upon the crown of her golden hair, winning like even to another Jason, that golden fleece of his desire. The thought pleased him and he smiled, and turned his glance toward Avron, staring down unmoved, as it seemed, in all the tumult, from his place in the fuselage.
A few moments—aye, a few moments. He faced back to Helmor, standing with gloomy visage, and let his gaze run past him and up the flight of steps behind him. A few moments and he would lift Naia and Jason, Son of Jason, into the pit of the plane behind Avron and rise with them free of Berla's prisoning walls.
And then he stiffened. Helmon emerged from the palace, and with him, Naia of Aphur, and Maia walking beside her, and about them some half dozen members of the guard.
And now no longer was Croft the Mouthpiece of Zitu, but as he watched the approaching party begin the descent of the stairs, noting the slender lines of Naia's figure, the death-like pallor of her, straining his eyes for a first glimpse of the child. A moment—a single moment his leaping heart told him, and they would be reunited—one moment only remained of the dreary waiting. Naia of Aphur was coming toward him—nay, flying toward him.
For, suddenly, without any warning, she was free of Maia's supporting figure, clear of the guardsmen, past Helmor and speeding swiftly in the firelight down the steps.
Croft opened wide his arms.
And then she was against him, lifting to his bended face eyes so filled with maddening horror that they struck fresh terror to his spirit, beating upon the cross the wings of Azil of his cuirass with tight-clenched, desperate hands, panting rather than speaking, into his startled ears the cry of a mother's frenzy.
"Gone, Jason—gone. They have taken him from me. In the name of Zitu, hasten to Bel's temple and save him. They have gone to sacrifice our son!"
Gone! For a heart's beat the soul of Jason Croft gave ground. Gone. This, then, was the end of his scheming, his months of weary labor. With success in his grasp he was beaten.
"God!" he cried, not knowing in the shock of the moment that he spoke in English, and releasing the grip of his arms about her body, he seized her by the arms. His fingers bit into the white, white flesh upon them. "But—he was safe with thee when darkness fell, beloved."
"Aye, aye!" She nodded in desperate affirmation. "Scarce had Gor gone when Helmon came to release us—"
"Gor!" Croft bent straining eyes upon her.
"Aye—Gor—creature of Kalamita. He it was who tore him from me, after he had slain the captain of the guard—saying it was done by Helmor's order. O Ga and Azil, canst not understand? To the Temple of Bel and save him or else let Berla be destroyed."
"Aye, if he dies, by Zitu." Croft swept her close pressed against his side, and turned to Helmor.
"Thou hearest, Zollaria, what answer have ye to words of Gor?"
And in that moment when the balances trembled with the issue of life and death for himself, his people, his nation, as well as for the other actors in that tight-gripped scene, of every blended human emotion, Helmor more than any time in Croft's knowledge of him proved his right to reign. One quick pace he came toward the Mouthpiece of Zitu, and the half fainting woman he supported, and paused with hand on sword and flashing eyes.
"Nay, by Bel," he answered strongly. "Not by word of Helmor was this thing come to pass, but by the trickery of another, because of a plot against me, of which it would seem from his own words, Jason knows. Helmon, my son—" he turned briefly to the crown prince standing pallid and shaken before this fresh turn of events—"what know you of this foul matter?"
And Helmon answered quickly, "Naia of Aphur speaks truth. Gor slew the captain who denied him entrance to the chamber, and cowed the guardsmen with his mighty strength—saying he took the child by thy orders, O my father; wherein as thou knoweth he lied."
"Aye." Helmor's features darkened. "Yet sought to take advantage of the present instance to accomplish the interests of his sweetheart. By Bel, I swear it. Let Tamarizia say if he believes."
Deep in his troubled soul Croft knew that he did. The thing was well in keeping with the methods Kalamita would almost certainly have employed. Beaten until the moment of the city's panic in her efforts to gain possession of the son of the man she hated, with a hatred defying reason—it would have been like her once the aircraft hovered above Berla to recall Helmor's words that the child should be given to Bel in the event that Tamarizia refused the Zollarian demands or made any hostile move.
She might well have sent Gor on his mission, trusting to the excitement to gain him access to the palace, to Helmor's former words to overcome any refusal of his demands on the part of the guard. Such things passed swiftly through his brain as the crowd again took up its clamor—"To the temple, O Helmor—to the temple. Death to Gor who has undone us! Seek and slay him!"
Jason Croft inclined his azure-crested helm. "Aye, Helmor," he accepted, "Jason believes. This were the work of Kalamita, not another. Wherefore—"
"To the temple!" Naia of Aphur screamed. "In Zitu's name, waste no more words about it!"
"To the temple—to the temple!" The words became a beating surf of sound on the lips of the people. "To the temple quickly, O Helmor!"
Helmor acted. "Ho, guardsmen, attend me! To the Temple of Bel!" he roared.
CHAPTER XI
THE TEMPLE OF BEL
To the Temple of Bel! To that ebon dark structure, where in its mighty enclosure crouched the figure of the unclean god. It was the one chance—the one remaining hope of a full success in his venture, and Jason knew it.
"To Avron—up and remain with him," he cried to Naia.
"Nay, Jason—nay, my beloved," she denied him, gasping. "With thee. Keep me in this at thy side."
"Come, then." He tightened the arm about her yielding waist and crushed her to him. There was scant time to argue. Already the guard were forming—massing a wall of their bodies about them. And there was a thing that demanded his attention. Swiftly he drew his signal-lamp and pointed it to the skies.
"To the Temple of Bel! Descend above it!" He sent a message with a hand that, despite his stern control, was not wholly steady. "To the Temple of Bel," he repeated, and lowered his eyes to find Helmor's eyes upon him.
"I but signed the airships to follow us to the temple," he voiced an explanation, lest the man misunderstand him, and found himself wondering if the huge craft would be able to identify and find it—decided there was naught he could do to aid them, that the carrying out of the order lay wholly in the hands of Robur.
And Helmor seemed to understand, though he made no answer, speaking instead to Helmon. "Remain and guard the machine. Let no one approach it."
"To the temple!" Once more the voice of the crowd—a seething mass now of jostling, pressing bodies—of white faces and lifted arms in the flickering light of the firelight.
Helmor answered the rising ululation, "Aye, to the temple. Forward, guard!"
Croft lifted Naia of Aphur, holding her terror-shaken figure before him, cradling it in his arms against his metaled breast. Side by side he went forward with Helmor as the guard advanced across the square, breaking a pathway through the mass of the people with their spears. Slowly at first, and then with a quickened rhythm beat their feet. Their moving mass gathered momentum as their captain lifted his voice and called a rising cadence. The light of the blazing buildings shone sharp upon the spearheads—shimmered and flashed on their glinting harness as they charged toward the shadowy mouth of a street.
To the temple—the temple! The thud and clank of their feet, striking in a measured rhythm, seemed to beat the words into Jason's ears. To the temple—the temple! Naia of Aphur was praying. As he raced inside the cordon of other racing bodies, Croft caught the whisper of her pale lips beneath his own set, straining face.
"Ga—Azil—Ga, eternal mother—Azil—angel of life—have mercy—spread thy wings in shelter above him—"
They reached the street and plunged among its shadows, pounding with a dull reverberation of many feet along it. To the temple—the temple. The walls of its banking structures gave back the echo of that ceaseless rhythm. He glanced at Helmor. Set of lip and narrow-eyed, his features distorted by the rage that burned within him, the realization of this latest menace come upon him, the haste that had made him cast aside all dignity of station, and sent him thus on foot in a last endeavor to offset it, the Zollarian ran with a steady, unfaltering stride.
"Zitu—father of all life—"
Croft tensed his muscles, pressing the yielding form of Naia closer to his pounding heart. Save for her whispers, the clank and thud of the charging body of men, their heavy breathing, there was no sound in all the night. Behind them Berla was burning, with a lessening glare. Here only the moonlight cut in silver bands and purple shadows as they raced. He glanced up toward the azure heavens. His sweat-misted eyes beheld a drifting shape—huge, too regular of outline for a cloud—the glistening, glinting envelope of a blimp.
"They follow us, beloved—Robur follows." He spoke in muffled tones to Naia—and found her purple eyes lifted darkly to his face.
Out of one street and into another raced the straining Zollarian guard, and along it, and into another, and through that into a second monstrous square.
The Temple of Bel! Croft knew it—recognized it, felt his spirit once more falter as he sensed its dark mass lightened by some interior radiance that shone redly between the mighty pillars, pricking out each massive column in an inky blackness—the light of Bel's lighted fire!
Croft sensed its meaning—that Ptah had done his part and ignited the sacrificial flame in the body of the monstrous god, lifted his eyes from the fire-etched line of the pillars and found smoke curling in whirling streamers above the temple façade, lifted his soul in a prayer that Robur would also see it, mark it a beacon to guide his searching, and ran on toward the serried flight of steps before him, reached them and began to climb.
Up, up, he made his way with Helmor and the now panting guard. Up, up—and what sight of horror would that radiance between the ebon pillars reveal when they reached the top?
He sickened before the question, found himself straining still ever upward, made dizzy by his anguished thought.
"Ga and Azil—Zitu—father of life—have mercy—"
Suddenly he lifted his arms and shifted the body of Naia, turning it more wholly toward him, as though thereby to hide from her eyes the light of the temple fires.
Up, up—the last step at last. And there, among the pillars supporting the mighty colonnade, Helmor's party paused. Before and below them, the vast pit with its rows of surrounding steps, whereon a multitude might find seats—the idol in its center showed. Men—such as Croft had seen on the occasion of Kalamita's visit to the Priest of Bel, were working about the god. Smoke and flame curled from its flaring nostrils as they fed its inward fires—and its hands, extended flatly, palm up, before its ugly belly shone redly—they glowed. Heated to a dull incandescent, they waited the sacrifice.
So much Croft saw in a single glance, and found his spirit lighten, even as Naia struggled to her feet and gazed upon the scene before her—cried out and covered her eyes.
"Forward." He spoke to Helmor. "Bid the guard surround the idol—seize the men who attend it and hold them, while we make search for the child."
For there was time—time yet to accomplish all his purpose. Bel's glowing hands were waiting, but not yet had the sacrifice been placed within them, and deadly purpose wakening swiftly once more in the mind of Jason, drove out his former fears. Enough he knew of Bel's worship to know that no sacrifice were acceptable to him, unless placed in the hands of the god.
And Helmor seemed to comprehend both his intent and the situation fully. He addressed the captain of the sweating guardsmen. "Take a portion of your men—surround the image. Let none approach it." Then as the officer, saluting, turned to fulfill his orders, he drew back, with face gone livid, and faltered. "Stay! Nay, now, by Bel I dare not. The sacrifice approaches. Behold!"
Lifting a shaken arm, he pointed. Croft followed the direction of his hand and starting eyes. He turned his baffled glance to the other end of the mighty enclosure, where at the head of the farther tier of steps a processional appeared.
Ptah! He saw him, naked in all his wonderful animal strength save for a scarlet leathern apron about his bulging loins and a headdress of ebon plumes, and the glint of metal sandals and casings of metal on his feet and monstrous calves. And behind him a body of lesser priests.
So much only he saw at first, and then, as Ptah and his satellites descended the upper tier of steps, Kalamita, in the veiled beauty of her physical form, appeared. Kalamita! Woman of flesh and fleshy beauty—Priestess of Adita. Her perfect body shone in the light of the sacrificial fires, an iridescent thing of tinted silk and jewels, and behind her Bandhor and Panthor.
They descended a single step—and behind them came Gor in his banded cuirass of copper, on which the light struck dully, bearing the sacrifice.
Jason, Son of Jason—he lay upon an ebon-colored cushion, and even as Croft's agonized eyes beheld him, he lifted little upflung hands and arms.
"Ga—and Azil," cried Naia of Aphur in an anguish of recognition.
Croft whirled on Helmor. "Forward. There remains yet time to save him!" he roared.
"Nay, Mouthpiece of Zitu, I dare not." At the end, Helmor balked the issue. Life-long superstition proved stronger than all other considerations. "Helmor nor any man may seek to keep from Bel what is consecrated to him."
"Ga—" The prayer of a mother to the Mother Eternal.
The thing was a matter of a few moments. Then Croft cast his glance upward.
A monstrous, glistening oblong hung there, slowly turning. He lowered his gaze and swept it across the floor of the mighty pit, and from that to Ptah and those behind them. And then his voice lashed back at Zollaria's monarch. "Does Helmor fear then the fire of Bel—more than Tamarizia's fires?"
And Helmor answered. "Helmor, Tamarizian, performs not a sacrilege against his god. In his hands be it."
"Then let Helmor behold!" Croft took the only chance remaining. Swiftly he darted down some half dozen tiers of steps and lifted his huge signaling-torch to the skies.
"Set fire to the pit of the temple."
Once, twice, he flashed that message, even though after the first swift sending, the blimp began sinking down. And then as it hovered lower and lower, bulking ever more hugely, he turned and climbed back with limbs that shook beneath him, to Naia's side.
For that was the thought born of his desperate need as Helmor weakened in his purpose—to flood the level space between Ptah and the idol with a mass of impassable flame—to check him, hold him from the presence of his god with fire, since he might not do it with men.
Lower and lower sank the airship. Like a mighty cover settling down above the open enclosure, it seemed. And as Croft slipped an arm about the swaying form of Naia of Aphur, it paused.
Paused, too, Ptah and his fellow priests. They had caught sight of Croft on the steps beyond the idol—marked the upflung posture of his arm. Their eyes had leaped above it and fallen on the glistening shape descending as it seemed, upon their heads. Perhaps consternation seized them—perhaps they waited merely to grasp its presence. But at all events they paused with lifted faces.
And as they stood—the floor of the pit about the idol, beyond it farther and farther, burst into widening lines of flame. Swiftly those lines stretched out, spreading, spreading across the sunken level, as the monstrous shape above it poured down its fiery rain. In it the image of Bel glowed yet more hotly, became a thing of a myriad licking, darting, fiery tongues. The men who had stoked the fires within it vanished, writhing, caught beyond any hope of rescue in the open.
And whether consternation had first seized the minds of Ptah and his party, it seized them now. They turned to draw back before the deadly menace of the sea of fire before them. Too late—its ever widening circle swung its arc against them. Ptah—Priest of Bel, shrieked once in mortal anguish, and went down.
On the steps of Bel's Temple—on their way to Bel's idol—he and his fellows sank in a horrid dissolution, with a grotesquely terrible twitching of tortured bodies, a tossing of arms and limbs. They fell and, driven by their own contortions, dropped one by one from step to step among the lapping flames.
Above them stood Kalamita—Priestess of Adita—stood as one wholly bereft of motion, until suddenly she shrieked in a voice that rang from end to end of the temple, turned to flee, and shrieked again, and fell forward, beating at her body—and Gor, casting aside the child on its ebon cushion, leaped down and caught her writhing figure in his arms.
"Enough—enough!" Croft flashed the signal upward, and started running off between the pillars to reach the further tier of steps from whence still rang the screams of Kalamita. And as he ran he drew his sword, and went on clutching it in a tightly gripping hand.
"After him! Seize Bandhor, Panthor, and the woman. Hold them! Preserve the child!" Helmor roused from the fear that had held him impotent in the presence of Zollaria's now discredited god.
The guard leaped to obey the order. Croft heard the pound of their feet behind him and ran on.
A hundred feet, two, three. The fires below him having naught to feed them, were burning themselves out. He reached the tier of steps down which Ptah and his fellows had gone to their death. Bandhor and Panthor stood there, and Gor—his mistress's screams now sunk to moanings—her once lovely body marked by angry scars where the spattering liquid fire had sprayed from the lower steps and struck her, yet held a white, jeweled shape against his mighty breast.
Toward them, still with his naked sword in his hand, he made his way. Behind him came Helmor's guard. And yet—as he advanced, oddly enough Croft gave little attention to them. His eyes seemed centered beyond all other purpose, on the shape of the ebon cushion Gor had cast from him ere he leaped to Kalamita's aid—that cushion beside which, wholly unheeded, lay the form of Jason, Son of Jason—his child.
Then as he stooped to raise him in hands that trembled, the guard flung themselves on the two men.
"Back," Bandhor suddenly thundered. "Back, men of Zollaria! It is thy commander speaking."
And Helmor, bursting through the faltering soldiery, answered, "Nay, not so, Bandhor, thou traitor, any longer—not thou or Panthor, but Helmor rules still in Berla. Seize him—and lead him to the palace, there to stand trial with Panthor for his treason."
Again the guard surged forward, closing about Bandhor and Helmor's cousin, and Croft found a slender form hurled swiftly against him, white hands clinging to him—the purple eyes of Naia of Aphur, lighted with the wild, sweet fires of fulfilled yearning, lifted to him across the body of the child.
His heart too surcharged for words, he smiled upon her and laid Jason, Son of Jason, in her arms.
With the sound of a caught-in sob, a gesture hungry in its passion, she gathered him to her, bent her face above him, rocking him gently with a swaying of her slender figure as one groping baby hand crept up and dug itself into the soft substance of her gown. Turning with him to the girl of Mazzeria, whom Croft now sensed for the first time as having followed from the palace—dogging faithfully her mistress's footsteps to the last.
Ga, the Mother—the Virgin—the Madonna, bending in tender brooding above the infant—pressing it in loving rapture against the greater bulk of the form that had given it birth.
From that sight Croft turned away his misted eyes to find those of Kalamita fixed on him in a stare of well-nigh insane hatred.
She had struggled free from Gor, and, despite the pain of her burns, which in their blindly, upflung course, had spared not even the once beautiful mask of her face, was standing there before him. And, as their glances met, her tightly held lips parted.
"Thou—thou," she mouthed; "thou Mouthpiece of Zitu—thou man of ice and fire—thou wrecker of the plans of Kalamita—thou man like not to any man before thee—by all the fiends of the foul pit of the underworld I curse thee—may they torture thy spirit—and that of her whom I have kept for Zitrans from thee, and bring sickness and loathsome disease on the child. May its flesh rot and its bones grow hollow like blasted reeds—may Adita cause thy mate to shrivel quickly—may she cease to please thee, and yet cling to thee—denying thee the pleasure she herself no longer gives. May Bel visit his wrath upon thee for the sacrilege thou hast shown him. I, Kalamita—"
"Peace." The captain of the guard laid hold upon her. "Thy pleasure with this woman, O Helmor?"
And Helmor eyeing her, answered, "Nay—nothing. That she who has turned the minds of men with her beauty should stand thus now before them, were punishment indeed. Release her—let her go her ways."
"Thy fault—thou Mouthpiece. The curse of Kalamita on thee!" Once more she wheeled on Jason.
"Nay—curse no more," he told her. "Once thou didst challenge Adita to blast thy fairness and thou did not accomplish thy ends against me. And now it is in my mind that thy fickle goddess has taken thee at thy word."
"Aye, peace!" said Helmor. "Get thee to thy palace, woman."
For a moment Kalamita drew herself up before him, and then, flinging clenched hands above her tawny head in an impotent gesture, she turned to Gor standing stolidly waiting, and leaning her weight against him, went with him into the night.
And that is all, as Croft would say, I suppose—since when he described Naia's winning to me at the time of the Mazzerian War he brought his narrative to a close with their marriage, until I demanded that the end of the war itself be told.
So now one may fancy that to him the real ending of the matter would have been in that moment when he stood there with Helmor, and Naia, standing with Jason, Son of Jason, held fast against her breast, and Maia, the girl of Mazzeria, at her side, and knew that Helmor had no longer any thought save to see him depart with them in safety, that he and his city might also know themselves safe.
But to my mind there is more to the story—not so much of an individual nature, as applying to the future of the Palosian life.
For, to the ears of my spirit, which had witnessed all the crowded events, came Helmor's voice addressing Jason:
"How now, Mouthpiece of Zitu—what else?"
And Jason answered. "Naught, O Helmor, save that we return to the machine before the palace, and depart in peace, unless by Helmor's wish."
"What mean you by Helmor's wish?" There was no sign of understanding in the Zollarian monarch's intonation or the now somber lines of his face, as the last rays of the fire in the vast pit of Bel's Temple struck upon it.
Again Croft answered slowly, "Naia of Aphur, wife of Jason, and Jason, Son of Jason, were seized for a purpose—which Helmor knows—-and the end is—this."
For a moment he paused and swept an arm about the mighty interior of the temple—embracing all—the still-smoking figure of the idol—the bodies of Ptah and his fellow priests, now lying charred and blackened below him on the serried steps.
And then as Helmor made no response or comment on that scene of sudden death and desolation, he resumed. "Yet have I said that I came not in vengeance against thee, nor in war, nor for any reason save only to regain my own. Wherefore, I say again to Helmor, now, that the purpose he had in mind may be served equally in a different fashion—and that he say the word he may gain in peace what he might not obtain by either treachery or war—and I say to him also that this night's work has preserved not only Naia of Aphur and Jason, Son of Jason, to me, but to Helmor also, his throne."
And now Helmor spoke, nodding quickly. "Aye—Helmor does not overlook it. Speak, Mouthpiece of Zitu—how may these things you hint at be done?"
Having fully caught his attention, Croft went on, "Let Zollaria and Tamarizia make a pact of peace between them, pledging themselves without reservation to sheathe the sword from this hour, nor draw it one against the other again. Let Helmor subscribe to this, and Helmon, Helmor's son. Let him proclaim the establishment of schools, the education of his people. Let him seek for his nation strength through the growth of knowledge, rather than the strength of arms—"
Once more he paused, and again Helmor nodded.
His face lighted swiftly as he caught Croft's meaning.
"Aye, by Bel," he said. "It is thy knowledge, Mouthpiece of Zitu, that has made Tamarizia strong."
"And not Tamarizia only, but Zollaria also," said Jason, "if Helmor sets his seal to such a bond."
"By Bel," Helmor exclaimed, as all the suggestion embraced burst suddenly upon him. "Come then to the palace. Let us speak of this more fully. Delay thy departure as guests of Helmor and his people till morn."
"Aye." Croft assented without hesitation, his stern face strangely exalted by the thought that out of this night of warring purpose and emotion, peace between age-old foemen might be born.
Back, then, they made their way through the streets along which they had rushed so short a time in so vastly different a fashion to regain the square before the palace—where only the light of the fire urns now served to show Avron, still sitting at his station in the pit of his machine.
And there Croft, lifting his signaling-flash, sent a final message to the mighty shapes still circling over the city. "Remain until the morning. Watch for the plane at dawn."
Robur's answering flash winked promptly back at him redly, and bidding Helmon join them, they entered the palace, through which Jason had flitted in the astral presence so many times.
Yet different now indeed was the situation, as Helmor summoned slave-girls to attend on Naia, provide for her every comfort. He left her with Croft for the moment and Croft drew her into his arms.
For a long, long moment he held her, sensing her nearness—her dearness—the truth that now again, not only in spirit but in body, was she his own.
"Beloved!" he whispered, and crushed her to him.
"Beloved!" she whispered, and threw back her golden head to lift her purple eyes to him.
So for a long moment, and then she spoke again. "And thou canst accomplish thy purpose, beloved—were it not well worth suffering, indeed? Thinkest thou Helmor is taken with the notion?"
"Aye," said Jason, and he paused as he recalled Gaya's words that out of his bereavement, his agony of spirit, would come not only peace to his soul, but a possible peace between the nations—and found himself undecided, but his own thought of such a peace as he had offered Helmor had been first inspired by a woman's attempt to give him encouragement in a troubled hour of need.
"Zitu grant it."
Naia nestled against him. "Go then and arrange it. I shall pray for thy success upon my knees."
After that, Croft left her, and rejoined Helmor and his son. To that same apartment in which Jason had inspired his dream of warning against Kalamita, the Zollarian monarch led them, and there they took up the matter of a treaty between their nations, at the point where they had laid it down.
Thereafter, while the hours passed, Helmor's expression altered; his eyes grew darkly flashing; the deeply graven lines in his somber visage relaxed as Croft expounded the advantages to be gained in a friendly intercourse between his own and Helmor's people, suggested with what must have seemed to the two Zollarians closeted with him, an inspired mental vision. He proposed the terms of the international coalition—teachers from Tamarizia to instruct the Zollarian workmen—the establishment of telegraphic communication—a readjustment of trade relations—the extension north of Croft's interrupted scheme for a system of electrically operated railroads—the opening of shops and schools.
Until at last Helmor, rising in no small excitement, sent Helmon to summon a scribe, and demanded the immediate drawing-up of a provisional bond, which Jason should take with him in the morning for ratification at Zitra. He began a restless pacing to and fro as the scribe set to work upon it, holding his heavy hands clasped together behind his back as he paced and turned.
It was a strange night for Helmor of Zollaria, as he must have thought, wherein Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu—the man who had thrice baffled his purpose, sat with him in his own apartment, and rather than crushing him wholly, now, in his final defeat—placed the objects of his seeking in his hands—a strange night, indeed, whereon he owed not only his own throne to his singular foeman—but the promise of a greater future than ever to his nation—greater than he had dreamed in all his scheming.
And then—the scribe had finished his labors. Helmor strode to the table, removed his signet from his finger and affixed its seal to the agreement. Through the windows of the apartment a faint gray light was stealing—the harbinger of dawn.
He replaced his signet, extended his hand to Jason. Across the promise of a newer dawn for their people Helmor of Zollaria and the Mouthpiece of Zitu struck palms.
And in the light of that double dawn, the fullness of that double peace, Jason and Naia of Aphur, Maia, the girl of Mazzeria, and Jason, Son of Jason, went down to the waiting machine.
Croft helped the women aboard and passed up the child. Cased in his suit and helmet of leather, Avron took his place in the machine. Then ere he followed, Jason turned to look into Helmor's face.
"Hail Helmor—and farewell. And thou, Helmon, son of Helmor," he said.
"Hail, Mouthpiece of Zitu—and Naia of Aphur—and farewell," they replied.
Up, up shot the plane; leaving Helmor and Helmon and the soldiery to mark its swift ascent. Up, up it mounted over Berla, until the sunlight caught it also, turning its wheeling vanes like the greater shapes above them to gold. Up, up—the city fell away beneath it as it swung in an ever widening circle, beneath the mighty ships that all night had waited for its rising. Naia of Aphur lifted her voice.
Clear, strong, true, and perfect as a golden bell, it mounted in a paean of thanksgiving.
"Hail, Zitu—father of all life—and thanks from a grateful heart. Hail, Azil—giver of life—who poured life into the mold of life—from which I was born. Thanks be to thee for the life that is mine—this life—I hold from thee—to be mine own. Blessings—my blessings upon thee, Ga—that I am a woman—my thanks for the tears with which, womanlike, I have washed your feet—not knowing that so I washed out also sorrow—preparing thereby my heart as a flask for the mellow wine of life from which now joy is drunk."
So sang Naia of Aphur, and I recognized the song as one of which Croft had told me—as one she had sung on another occasion when she bore him back from the camp of the Mazzerian army under Bandhor—as a chant—a prayer, used by Tamarizian women for one who had lain at the very door of death, and returned.
Here, then, I think is the logical end of the story—with the great plane driven south by Avron, and behind him, Maia, the girl of Mazzeria, and Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, and Naia of Aphur singing—with Jason, Son of Jason, held safe in her cradling arms.