CHAPTER XIII
THE KILLERS
I could not say if the others slept, for I knew nothing more till I waked bewildered in a dim golden light, with my comrade of the night touching my hand to rouse me. The rest of the troop had begun to move forward already.
I was sunk deeply in the soft moss, which was of a very close texture, and of so dark a green as to look black in the shadow. The branches overhead spread low and wide, as do those of a beech. The leaves also were beech-like, but of a golden yellow. Not the yellow of Autumn, but one of an abundant vitality. I noticed the fragrance which had soothed my exhaustion when we entered. It gave me now a sense of contentment and physical well-being such as I had never experienced.
It must have been full daylight without, for the light did not increase farther within the wood, but here it was a golden twilight only. I was able to look clearly for the first time at my companion. The human mind is so ductile that already the slim furred form gave an impression of familiarity. Not being one of the Seven, she had the distinctive patterning by which each was individualised. In her case, a zebra-like striping on the back, produced by trimming the fur shorter, as it was of a darker shade beneath, the silver-grey marking of the back being superficial only.
We conversed freely as we crawled forward for some hours over the springy moss. I met here with a mind of a ready friendliness, and a very lively curiosity. I suppose, by our reckoning, she had lived for an enormous period, but the mind that met me gave an impression of an invincibly child-like quality,—but it had other characteristics which I was to learn more slowly. The impression which I gave to her was, no doubt, somewhat different.
Her keen delight in the new world,—as new to her as to me,—through which we were passing, contended with her curiosity to learn the still stranger world of which I could tell her, and gave little time for me to learn of her, or of the life to which she was native. But she gave me glimpses of an existence which found its pleasure in wandering through a marine world which was as much more extensive than the dry ground as it is to-day, and which I judged to have changed but little. One episode she gave me vividly because of the indelible impression which it had made upon her. It appeared that her kind can wander freely among the huge savage creatures of the ocean-depths, exploring its heights and valleys, and penetrating its caves with impunity, because they can control every form of life it contains by a will-power which works without effort. She had attempted, in a spirit of mischief, to allow various savage creatures to attack her, intending to forbid them at the latest second, but she found invariably that though their minds were confused by a feeling of her complacence, the respect of her kind was too deep an instinct for them to disobey, until she tried the trick upon a species of shark of an exceptional ferocity. Vividly I saw it, under depths of green water, from which all weaker forms of life had withdrawn in terror. The savage rushes of the hungry fish which she had foiled at the last moment with a thought of derision, and the snap of his disappointed jaws. And then,—the instant’s diversion of mind in its too-confident certainty, and the half-second too late,—the passionate repulse that sent the great fish cowed and grovelling to the sea-floor a hundred feet below,—and the consciousness that her right arm was hanging torn and useless. And then the long swim homeward for two thousand miles to the only place where help could be given, and how she had told her tale to the Seven, and they had decreed that the arm should never entirely heal, so that it should be a warning to her and all her race for ever. And in evidence she showed the scars, where no fur grew, and I understood that the scar of a healed wound was something beyond the previous experience of her kind.
Of the swimming of the great tunnel she told me also, which extends for several thousand miles from one sea to another, through an intervening continent, and of strange forms that lurk in its labyrinth of caves, such as the open oceans have never seen,—labyrinths in which you may wander for many months, seeking in vain for an exit.
Of such things I learnt much, but I noticed that her mind was little fixed upon the object of the expedition. That she understood that it was very dangerous, and might terminate her bodily life was clear enough, and that the thought of such potential sacrifice for her Leader’s rescue filled her with a pleasurable exhilaration that was stronger than fear, this I understood; but of the thought of any possible aggressive violence to achieve her end, her mind seemed as incapable as her body seemed ill-adapted for such a purpose. Frequently her thoughts were of the movements in the moss below, which must have teemed with life, though it did not annoy us in any way; or of the occasional sound of wings in the boughs above us; or of the straight and narrow paths that cut through the moss continually, down which we once saw a small form disappearing, looking like a beetle running upright on its hind legs, and of the size of a field-mouse.
But though her mind was not anxious as to the result of the expedition, I soon had evidence that those of her Leaders were differently occupied.
A thought came down the line to halt, and for me alone to go forward.
This I did, till I came to an open space in the forest. Here I found the five Leaders seated where the moss-carpet extended somewhat beyond the trees, and for a moment they waited while my mind was held by the beauty of the sight which met me.
The trees which surrounded the glade were of one kind only: beech-like in growth, though the branches spread and drooped with greater regularity. The gold which shows faintly on an oak in springtime was here the dominant colour, tinged with green if the wind lifted the leaves, which were of a fine transparency, or deepening to the background of a Tuscan fresco, as it sank again into quietude. The moss, which extended on all sides outward from the trees for a short distance, showed dark in a strong sunlight. Beyond this, the glade was covered with a short growth of coral-pink, on which blue pigeons, such as I had seen before, were feeding, and showing no concern at our presence.
Grace of line and harmony of colour—everywhere I found them, as in the world I had left. Surely beauty is more fundamental than righteousness! Or may the two be one only?
If there were any difference in the new world, it was only that nature produced her effects with greater economy of material, massing her colours, and content to display a few varieties of plant or tree only, where I had been used to the combinations of hundreds. But I recognised that I had seen too little to justify such generalisations. It would be as though a man were to spend a few days on the Norfolk Broads, or in the Highlands of Scotland, and imagine the whole surface of the earth to be similar to the scenes he witnessed.
But the Five were waiting. My guide of the previous night addressed her mind to mine, and the others arranged themselves to perceive us. I was first asked if I were willing to give my aid to the object of the expedition, if it should be of any utility. It did not appear to occur to them to offer any reward or inducement, and in reply I consented unconditionally.
I was then asked to explain the purpose of the axe I carried, with which I had defeated the vegetable octopus of my first adventure. This led me to inquire why its victim had not been able to save herself by the power of will on which they relied for their protection, to which I received the answer that it would have been of little avail, as the whole forest was against her, and was conscious that it was carrying out the duty for which it had been planted, whereas she was breaking the treaty with its originators. I recalled the way in which it had quailed before me, but it was pointed out that I was not under the obligations of the Amphibians. None the less, I felt that the incident gave me some increased prestige in the minds that considered it. The fact was that my hatred of the creature as an octopus was blended with the contempt which I felt for it as a cabbage—the first idea persisting—and that this attitude toward something which they regarded as formidable, both in itself and in its anger, impressed them inevitably.
But I soon modified this advantage. In explaining the uses of the axe, I offered to demonstrate it by felling one of the trees around us. The idea that I should destroy life for an illustration broke upon their minds with incredulity, that gave way to contempt. For a moment they regarded me as morally unfit to be associated with their enterprise, but recalling that they were contending against creatures even baser than myself (if that were possible) they decided to interrogate me further.
It was first explained to me that the spirit of her whom I had rescued so unsuccessfully was now guiding the expedition, and I was asked to put my mind at her disposal, so that I might see the creatures against which we were operating. On doing this, I received a vision of a forest path, on which three of them were walking in single file. They were about three feet in height, and in appearance they seemed to me such caricatures of humanity as might be the outcome of a nightmare dream. In colour they were a bright worm-pink, and of a surface which was repulsive beyond the resource of any word we have to describe it. Their heads were bald, but of a darker colour than their bodies and limbs. Their eyes moved continuously with an alert and restless malignity. Their lips—or rather the orifice of their mouths—elongated into a narrow tube about twelve inches long, through which they could take nourishment by suction only. Through these tubes they could make whistling sounds, by which they communicated with one another. They could stand easily on their legs if sight or reach required it, but squatting was their more natural posture. Each of them carried some kind of rope or cord in considerable quantity.
There was a fourth that followed, of the same form and colour, but of more than twice the size, and of a ferocity more brutal, though not more malevolent, than that of those who preceded him. He carried a powerful bow of dark wood, bent for use, and with a shaft ready for the cord.
It was conveyed to me that these were not adult and young of the species, but that the archer was of an exceptional growth, of which they had two or three only in each generation.
In the vision, I could hear plainly that others of their kind were whistling to them through the trees, to whom they replied with notes of rising excitement. Soon I perceived that one of the frog-mouthed apes that I had already encountered was being driven towards the party that I watched. I understood that it had been separated from its companions, and headed off from the safety of its native rocks. It now came bounding in a heavy bewildered terror toward the waiting archer.
Remembering how my own axe had cut through the throat of one of these creatures without apparently disturbing its equanimity, I was curious to see how a shaft could discommode it. I soon learnt. The hunted creature saw its new foes, and turned sideways. As it did so, it crossed the bole of a giant tree, and at the instant the archer wrenched the bow back to his ear, and the shaft flew. It drove through its victim’s neck, and deep into the trunk behind it. Before the shaft had ceased to quiver, the three that bore the ropes leapt forward and were twining them round the now struggling victim, binding it first to the trunk, and then, heedless of the gnashing teeth above the fastened neck, till every limb was useless.
By now the beasts that had driven it were arriving, and with an inferno of exultant whistlings the worm-pink crowd had loosed it from the tree, and drawn the shaft out of its neck, that they might drag it with them, now roped beyond movement. I watched it drawn for some miles in this way, clear of the woods, and up by rocky paths, until a high plateau was reached, a mile-wide shelf of rock, beyond which the mountain rose abruptly once again. On this shelf was their stronghold. A low, continuous, smooth-sided back-sloping stone-seeming wall, very broad at the base, and rising to a sharp ridge, swept crescent-shaped from the cliff, and enclosed the larger half of the plateau.
To this wall there was one barricaded entrance only, through which the hunters dragged their victim. Many more of their kind, of all sizes, were within the enclosure, but the sight of the captured prey was evidently too commonplace to attract their attention, and I saw that they squatted in the sun, or moved on their own errands, in complete indifference, while it was dragged toward a large cistern of boiling water, which was sunk in the ground, and into the centre of which a stone pier jutted. By carrying their ropes round the sides of the cistern they were able to draw their victim along this pier, so that it fell off at the extremity into the boiling vat. It was bound too tightly to struggle, and sank at once to the bottom, where it continued to move spasmodically as long as I observed it. I understood that it would boil there for many hours till the contents of the tough skin should be reduced to a semi-liquid form, such as its captors could draw in through their sucking mouths, and the whole sight filled me with a loathing for these bestial forms, and for the cruelties they practised. I did not reflect that the boiling of living fish, which is common in Asia, or of lobsters in our own country, is a far greater cruelty, being exercised on creatures of higher sensibility, and with far less excuse, as they could be killed without difficulty, which was by no means certain in the instance which I was observing.
I saw also that the centre of the crescent did not contain any buildings except such as were of a public character. Of these one confined the selected victims of the approaching feast, and this was built over one end of the boiling tank, and guarded by one of the giant archers, with a number of assistants round him. There was one other giant lying with a leg discoloured and useless against the cliff-wall, in an evidently dying condition,—shortly, no doubt, to share the fate of a dead body of one of their number which I saw flung over the farther side of the plateau, where it fell abruptly to a great depth.
I saw that the wall was hollow, with many doorways on the inner side, and that it formed the dwellings of the settlement. There were many young, moving in a more lively manner than the adults, and including two of the archer kind, which, though evidently immature, were already larger than the rest of the tribe.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HALT
I was recalled from this contemplation by the pressure of the minds around me, and my first thought was to ask why, if the Dwellers were supreme, they allowed the existence of such foulness. I was answered that it was all as strange to them as to myself, but I learnt later that the blood of creatures of a malevolent kind had a chemical quality which was required for certain purposes in connection with the defence of the continent, and that these creatures were deliberately bred to supply it.
I was then asked whether I were familiar with the weapon carried by the archers, and could use it if necessary. I replied that the bow had long been regarded as a deadly weapon in the world from which I came, but that in my own time and country it had fallen into disuse. I was not entirely unfamiliar with it, having consorted with some who had used it in competitions of skill, in which I had done indifferently well, but the bows I had used had been little better than toys when compared with that which I had now seen, and the memory of the depth that the shaft had been driven into the hard wood made me doubt whether I should have the strength to bend it.
This information was received with quiet satisfaction. I began to have an increased respect for these Amphibians, as I recognised the serenity with which they faced a problem which might well seem insoluble, under conditions which were in some respects more alien, and must have been far more repugnant, to themselves than to me.
I noticed the unhurried care with which they arranged the facts as they perceived them, and that while they had outlined an intention of effecting the rescue by the power of their own wills, without arousing the opposition of the will-power of their opponents, they were careful to avoid any detailed plan, until all the available information had been obtained to guide them. I began to understand how it was that they could rely upon arriving at unanimous decisions for all their actions, and the unquestioning faith with which these decisions were received by their followers. I felt that if the Dwellers were to appear at that moment with the threat of some overwhelming penalty, it would not radically disturb the equanimity of the minds that met them.
I was next asked whether I thought I could descend the cliff that rose at the back of the settlement in the moonlight, as the vision had shown it, and replied with certainty that I could not do so, either by night or day. I am without any special aptitude for climbing, and I think there are few men who would have attempted that descent under any conceivable circumstances.
I was then directed to await my previous companion, and the crawling march continued. As they passed me, two and two, I was able to estimate their numbers, for the Leaders had been at the head, and my own place was at the rear of the procession. I found that there were over three hundred whose lives had been committed to this enterprise.
On rejoining my companion I asked her whether this were the whole of her tribe or nation, to which she replied that there were many more, but that they could not have been summoned without delay, being scattered in many oceans, and a proportion of those available had to remain, that the Dwellers might not notice the absence of their accustomed service.
Only, I learnt, at an annual date which the stars showed them, did they all congregate, to sleep for three days’ space in the feeding-tanks, and gain strength for the year to be.
I gathered that my own method of continual eating, and the swallowing of waste matter, which my body promptly rejected, placed me definitely with the lower animals in her thought, though not unkindly—or rather with the sea-dogs and the fishes, for of a lower terrestial creation she had little previous knowledge, and it was, indeed, stranger to her world than to that from which I had wandered. I wondered how she regarded the Dwellers, of whom the one I had seen was certainly more of my own kind, but I recognised that she had other reasons to respect, if not to love them.
I next asked what might be the natural longevity of her kind, and if there were no old, infirm, or children that had been left behind, but to this she replied that they were not fishes, and their bodies did not alter or decay as the years passed. Obviously, if their bodies were damaged beyond remedy, they withdrew from them.
How, I queried, if they were not subject to birth or change, could one so disembodied hope for any new incarnation, and by what channel could it be gained?
But I could only learn that she was unperturbed by the suggested difficulty. Beyond this, her explanation faltered, or my mind was deficient to comprehend it. But the longer that I conversed with my companion, while the slow hours passed, and the crawling march continued, the more I realised that life persisted to the same ends, by the same methods, through all its physical changes, and even these—how slight they might appear to a detached observer!
In the softened golden light of this unending forest, could I have said certainly that I was not in some untravelled part of the world I knew? Nothing was too strange for that, except perhaps the Amphibian whose hand I held, and whose nervous strength it was which enabled me to go forward. And even she—was her form as grotesque, even to my human mind, as that of many beasts or reptiles which I could have seen in my own garden, or behind the bars of menageries? And was she not, of all the things around me, becoming the most familiar through the mental intimacy which was growing up between us?
In this great forest there was an atmosphere of enduring peace; it was a lake of stillness, rippled by softly-rustling unseen wings above us, or, more faintly, by the stir of slighter life in the moss below. Frequently we crossed the narrow roads I have mentioned, and as I looked at them more closely I was confirmed in the opinion that they were the work of the beetle-bipeds, one of which I had seen for a moment, for the moss on either side was trimmed with formal regularity, for doing which the mandibles of such a creature would be well adapted. The moss would be far too close in its growth for them to penetrate it in any other way, and yet not close enough for them to walk over it without sinking, so that it would otherwise form an insurmountable barrier. I was confirmed in this opinion when we passed an open glade which was white with low regular mounds of mushroom shape, from one of which I had a glimpse of two of these creatures issuing, and passing rapidly out of sight behind it....
I began to think of the Amphibians as being independent of sleep, as they were of food, but as the morning advanced an order came that we were to move sideways to the left (the two in front of us moving to the opposite side) until we were at the edge of the forest, which we were then approaching, and there to rest, and await the order to undertake the more arduous part of the journey, which must be accomplished while the daylight lasted.
Meanwhile all minds were to be concentrated upon the object of the expedition, which I now learnt was their method of sleeping, the mind being rested upon one thought only for a previously-decided period, a method surely superior to our own, in which it wanders blindly through disjointed recollections, and in vain conceptions of foolish or repugnant things.
A number were, however, directed to remain alert and wakeful, and to watch for any menace which might appear from the open country before us, from which only (it was assumed) could any danger threaten.
Being now on the extreme left of the line which the last movement had extended in echelon along the edges of an out-jutting spur of the forest, with our Leaders at its advanced point, I was asked whether I were able to assist in this manner, and was directed to watch as long as I could do so without exhaustion, and then to arouse my companion.
The halt would continue until the sun had reached its meridian. The mind of one of the Leaders would remain receptive to any report I might send it.
Even if I had not undertaken this duty, and recognised its importance in a land which was as potentially hostile to my companions as to myself, and which was even stranger in some of its aspects to themselves than to me, I could hardly have failed, for a time at least, to remain awake and aware of the strange beauty of the scene which was extended beneath me.
My companion sank at once oblivious in the deep moss, which yielded to our weight when we halted, and in which I took a sitting position, enabling me to look out from beneath the boughs which spread low overhead, and were sufficient to screen me from the outside observation of anything which did not approach very closely.
The ground before me sloped gently down to a deep and very wide valley. Far to the left were low hills; to the right front was a distance of wilder mountains, with snowy sides, height beyond height, with a suggestion of the foothills of the Himalayas. The valley undulated, and was heavily wooded in some places. It had wide plains, but without sign of cultivation, or of moving life.
The sky above us was the unclouded blue I had seen previously, very deep now in the strong sunlight. Far off,—and sight went far in the clear air, across the lower land,—there was a wide low forest with a silver hint of lake beyond it.
In colour, the whole scene gave me a first impression of a splendour of gold and blue, with dark hills around, and snowy mountains above them, but as I looked more closely I saw that there was an undertone of green, as in the old familiar landscapes, but with this difference, that where I had been used to the dark blue-green of trees and hedges breaking the yellow-green of the corn and grass-lands, here yellow-green, deepening to many shades of gold, was the prevailing tone of the woodlands, while open slopes and plains were covered with a blue-green verdure, in some places with no more hint of blue than in the leaves of a rhododendron, at others brighter than a peacock’s neck.
This was the general impression of a wide stretch of country, which might show differently at a closer view, or with a change of season. When I looked immediately in front of me I saw that the moss extended for two or three feet only from the forest-shade, and beyond this was a blue-green growth, of an orchis-like kind, which covered the ground where it sloped gently before me. Here and there, other plants struggled for existence among it, including one of a trailing habit which I noticed for a very fragile and beautiful flower shaped like a campanula, and approaching a very deep orange shade, but different from anything I had seen, and I have therefore no word by which to describe it.
Last, and nearest, I noticed, a bare yard to my left, where a low branch shaded the moss a little in advance of the trees around it, a ground-nest of beaten moss, of the size of a hand-bowl, and in it three small black puppy-like creatures, curled close, and sleeping in the shaded warmth of the morning.
Surely there was little change in the new world from the world behind me!
Here I watched for many hours, as the sun rose slowly. Once a huge bird crossed the sky, coming from the lower hills and disappearing at last over the distant heights of snow. It was many times larger than those which I had seen previously. It flew with strong steady strokes, but was too distant for more detailed observation.
Then I noticed a dark object moving slowly up the slope toward me, and grazing as it came.
Its body was of a dull blue colour, and was of the size of a sheep, or somewhat larger, but as round as an orange. It walked on two legs only, and there was no sign of forelimbs. But for the absence of any head I might have imagined it to be some kind of chicken, and looked round for the apparition of a monstrous hen.
There was a face set in the front of the round body, consisting of two eyes which surveyed the world with a twinkling and mischievous humour, and a mouth, of which the upper lip was elongated, like an elephant’s trunk, but to somewhat different purpose, and proportionately longer. Hard and thin and snake-like, it had the under side serrated with sharp bony ridges.
With this trunk it felt doubtfully over the surface of the herbage on which it fed. Then, finding a patch that grew to its liking, it pushed its trunk into the close growth, which appeared to resist its passage, with a rasping, tearing sound, till it was curled round the selected tuft, and then it pulled, and the sharp edges cut and tore the fibrous growth from the resisting roots, till the trunk turned inwards, to push its sheaf into the gap of the wide slit mouth, that was scarcely large enough to receive it, till the trunk had pressed and packed it in. And like a thrush that has won his worm after much pulling, the mischievous eyes twinkled with a humorous satisfaction.
Care or fear, it seemed, it had none, nor any thought of enmity, as it came with leisurely steps and jovial roving eyes towards the edge of the wood where we were lying.
I passed the information to my Leader’s mind, but received no instructions to do more than observe it. Closer it came, peering beneath the branches, its trunk moving so near to me that in a sudden panic I gripped the axe to strike, if it should attempt to molest me. But it only gazed with eyes in which curiosity appeared to be overcome by amusement at my comic aspect.
Indeed, it was this derisive glance which first made me realise at all adequately the appearance I must present in my tattered clothes to these creatures whose bodies were so much more easily cared for, and sufficient for their environment.
I thought that I had met with the humorist of the new world, and did not guess that I was on the threshold of tragedy.
My companions rested undisturbed, and it did not appear even to realise their presence, at which I was puzzled for a moment, thinking that they must be as strange to it as myself, and not understanding that the calm indifference of their minds, and the serene tranquillity of that of the Leader to whom I had reported its presence, were impregnable bulwarks against any form of molestation from a single animal of its order of intelligence.
Its eyes wandered from me, as having exhausted the amusement I offered, and fell upon the nest beside me. I thought that it surveyed the sleeping inmates with a greedy but doubtful interest. Right and left, with swift apprehensive glances, went the twinkling eyes, then a long trunk thrust in, and one of the sleepers was caught and swept into the gaping mouth-slit, too quickly for me to have interposed, had I wished to do so.
I had a thought that it was not its accustomed food, and that it had acted rather in a spirit of practical joking, amused to imagine the consternation of the returning parent, and the vain search for the missing puppy. If that were so, it was a jest of the shortest.
Even as the mouth closed, I had an instant vision of a lithe shape, like a small black panther, that sprang down from a nearby tree at the wood’s edge, something in its mouth like a snake curled close, or as a wire-worm shows when the spade exposes it. Then, on the instant, as it reached the ground, it saw, and dropped its prey, and leapt, a lightning bound of twenty feet, for the back of the robber.
Swift as it was, it was too late for its purpose. With the speed of fear, the jester had rolled on to his back with drawn-up legs, and it was the long toothed trunk that met the panther with a blow that flung it sideward.
The foiled beast drew back for a moment, crouching to spring, in its eyes a ferocity that left no doubt of its purpose, while in the glance of its opponent there was a consternation that had yet in it something that was grotesquely comic, like a fat man’s pathos.
Twice the panther leapt in, and was flung back with a reddening line of torn fur on the glossy back. Again it sprang, and held on for a moment with tearing teeth, while the trunk slashed it. Then it struggled clear with a torn side, and a forelimb that dragged awkwardly. But where its teeth had been in the blue-black skin, a jet of pale red fluid squirted up in the sunlight.
It was more cautious now, if no less resolute in its purpose. It circled round, crouching and watchful, but the cunning frightened eyes never left it, and the back-drawn trunk was ready. When next it sprang, the wounded limb told, and it fell short, and drew back with a torn ear and a bleeding jaw. I cannot say whether that gave it the idea, or whether the chance of battle befriended it. I should not have supposed it likely to succeed by cunning, when strength and agility had proved unavailing. But so it was. It leapt, and the trunk shot out to meet it, but the leap fell short, either through sleight or weakness, so short that it came down on the very end of the trunk, as it missed the intended stroke, and the strong jaws snapped upon it. Back the captured trunk wrenched desperately, and the panther was dragged some distance forward, but by now the uninjured fore-paw was holding also, and the back legs were straining to keep their ground, against an opponent which had no grip of that on which it lay. The serrated teeth were on the underside of the trunk, and as it slapped down, missing its stroke, it was caught on the upper surface, which was smooth and soft, so that the teeth sank deeply. And then, inch by inch, the panther bit upwards, biting till, foot by foot, she left it limp and useless behind her.
And gradually, as she bit, the struggles weakened. All this time that thin jet had sprayed upward, and from the appalled eyes the twinkling intelligence was gone out, as the panther leapt at last on the ball-like body, and ripped it open with strong claws that found no resistance. With each tear, the thin blood jetted out like a fountain, till the round body collapsed like a prickled bladder, in which the victor’s head was sunk with a growling contentment, so that I thought that, panther-like, she was already making a meal of her opponent’s body, till the head emerged again, and in her mouth was the recovered puppy.
Purring gently, she laid it in the nest, licked it all over, still alive, and seeming none the worse for its first adventure. As she did so she saw me, and the light of battle glared again in the fierce eyes for a moment, and then died, and, regarding me no more, she lay down and licked her wounds, and cleansed her damaged fur to something of the glossy smoothness on which her comfort and her pride depended.
While she was occupied in this way, I realised that it had become time to arouse my companion, and having done this, and communicated what had occurred, I sank into a sleep of exhaustion, from which the strangeness and excitement of my surroundings were powerless to hinder me.
CHAPTER XV
THE PLAN OF ATTACK
I was awakened by my companion from a deep sleep, out of which I was aroused with difficulty, and found that it was high noon, and the order had already been passed that we who were on the left hand of the outlying spur of the forest, around which we had rested, should cross to the other side, from which the next stage of the advance would be taken.
This we did, forming a second line behind those who were already in that position, and halting there while final instructions were given to us, to the effect that we were now approaching the most hazardous part of the journey, and that speed and silence, with readiness to obey any orders we might receive with instant alacrity, were essential.
We were directed to avoid separate intercourse, and to concentrate our minds upon the path we were taking, while holding them at the disposal of our Leaders, and under no circumstances to allow any emotion to control us, unless it were the ordered feeling of the expedition, and were operated in unison.
Although these orders were not directly applicable to myself, I was conscious of an increasing willingness to adapt myself to the methods and controls of my new companions, and was not insensible to the relief of mind which arose from the knowledge that the will of every member of the expedition could be brought to operate in this way.
It is true that all my habits were alien from a method of warfare which moved against unknown hostilities, such as were certainly capable of physical violence, without weapons or any evident means of self-defence, trusting, apparently, only to a mental attitude for its protection, and leaving me to wonder how any aggressive action could be even attempted. But I had already realised that the Amphibians had powers of intellect which, though different from my own, were very far from contemptible.
I was inclined to wonder whether my own complacency might not be the result of some subtle exercise of their will-power upon my own mind, which was probably so, though not in the way in which I supposed it, their influence not being the result of any mental violence or assault, but resulting from my gradual recognition of the assured serenity with which they possessed their souls against any pressure of surrounding circumstance, a serenity which had no root in obtuseness or indifference, but, with their leaders at least, was consistent with an unsleeping vigilance and forethought, and a chivalrous willingness to sacrifice themselves at the call of their companion’s peril.
We were now told to advance out of the forest in double file, all emerging at the same spot, on the right front, which was immediately before me, so that I watched the whole of the front line as it crawled to this spot and moved out into the sunlight.
Last of this line came the Five, an order passing ahead of them that I should be in readiness to follow. I was conscious of a strong reluctance to leave my zebra’d companion, of whose vitality I had taken so freely, and to whom I was drawn in consequence in a strange inhuman intimacy. But they answered my thought instantly that this was not intended. We were to move out together, immediately behind them. Being in the rearward line, we had been able to see little beneath the low and level branches till the moment came for us to go forward. Then the first sight that met me was a round blue-black body, from which two humorous twinkling eyes surveyed me satirically. For a moment I thought that I had encountered the most amazing reincarnation of this amazing world; at the next I recognised that there were two other similar creatures a short distance away, and that I was not encountering a reproduction of the one I had seen collapse so thoroughly, but only others of the same species.
Beyond these creatures, I had a moment’s glimpse of a different landscape from that which I had watched from the other side of the spur. Here the ground rose, the upward slopes growing steeper, toward a bare and desolate mountain grandeur. The next moment I saw the last of the Five leap lightly downward into a deep and narrow trench which cut through the ground before us, and I followed more awkwardly, my companion gaining my side as I did so.
I am conscious in this narration of the paucity of proper names,—of the use of no arbitrary sounds to distinguish the kinds or even the individuals of the strange beings amongst which I was moving, but the fact is that, unless I am to invent them, I have none to offer. It is the evident difference between mental intercourse and oral or written speech that such signs are imperatively needed in the latter, while in the former they would be worse than useless. The thought that brings the picture of the individual or place itself has no use for a sign by which to describe it. But of these I felt the lack even before I attempted to write down my experiences. It is the inevitable result of the constant use of a spoken language that we acquire the habit of substituting words for realities, even in the processes of our own thought. I found in the minds of my companions no names for each other, nor any vaguest desire for such a method of differentiation, but I accustomed myself to this omission with difficulty, and am fully conscious of the disadvantage under which I am now writing.
It was now the nearest of the Leaders—the one with whom I had held intercourse previously—who addressed herself to my mind. She commenced by informing me that she was about to describe the plans which they had formed, because they included a part for myself of the first importance, but of which they believed I should be capable.
Though I knew that I should undertake whatever might be suggested, if it were within my capacity, yet the feeling that I had been called up like a dog to receive my instructions, and the instinct of my commercial training, prompting me to make a bargain for my ultimate protection, complicated my reaction to this suggestion. “Are you less than a sea-dog?” queried the mind that met me, but perceiving that I intended assent, it became indifferent.
It appeared (I attempt no explanation) that the member of their number whom I had first met, on whom they were depending for guidance, could only communicate such knowledge as she had gained before she had left her body; and beyond that was only able to help them by the doubts or dissent with which she had met the various plans which they had put before her. They were therefore in ignorance of events that were now transpiring, but were able to receive detailed descriptions of the ground they were about to traverse, and of the experiences or observations she had made thereon, one of which had been shown to me in the vision which I have told already.
The plan now proposed had been received with assent, though doubtfully, and they had finally decided to adopt it.
She explained that trenches, such as we were now following, extended for many miles along the lower slopes of the hills, and through the valleys, bisecting each other, and dividing the ground into fields of very large area. Whether they were the work of the Dwellers, or were constructed by our present opponents,—whom I should not have supposed to be sufficiently numerous or intelligent for works of such magnitude,—was not known, but it was certain that the latter made use of their extensive existence to herd some of the creatures they ate, which were not of sufficient agility to leap the barriers. In this connection the blue-black monstrosities I had encountered were used by them as watch-dogs or drovers, being themselves immune from slaughter in return for these services. It was certain that these creatures would carry the news of our presence to their masters as soon as they were able to do so. While they had been in our immediate vicinity the will-power of our Leaders had been sufficient to restrain them, but this would not last in a case in which it was exercised against the instincts and obligations of the creatures themselves; and a suggestion from my mind that we might destroy them was dismissed contemptuously.
They would, however, continue to watch for a while, and would know, from the direction which would shortly be taken, that the expedition was turning into the mountains. Their masters would know that no danger could threaten from that direction for a space of one or two days, as the distance to be covered was not less than five hundred miles, and part of it was over very difficult surfaces, whereas we were only about one hundred and thirty miles from their stronghold, if the direct course were taken, and the trenches which I have mentioned, which were well drained on the higher slopes, provided a road along which the Amphibians could have proceeded with great rapidity. The distances were, of course, conveyed to me visually and not by terms of measurement.
The way through the mountains was, for the Amphibians, sufficiently hazardous, and would be, for me, impossible; and the Five had decided that it would be best for me to proceed with my one companion by the easier way, where it might be anticipated that my presence would not be suspected, and myself to attempt the rescue, by peaceful stratagem if possible, or by force if it should be necessary to do so.
My companion would supply the nervous energy necessary to enable me to cover the intervening distance in the forty-eight hours which yet remained before sunset, while, if any physical violence were necessary to effect my purpose, I should be acting according to the laws of my own nature, and against creatures more or less on my own level of conduct.
The enclosure which it would be necessary to enter I had already seen in the vision. It was the custom to place all the hunting weapons of the tribe during the night in a central building, which was not guarded, as no attack was ever anticipated from outside, particularly during the long night, when all the creatures on the earth’s surface rested. The building in which were the killing-pens was guarded day and night by one of the giant archers, lest its victims should attempt escape, and for other reasons which I could not follow.
The main force of the expedition would arrive, if all went well, on the top of the great cliff which overlooked the enclosure, at the commencement of the second night. Had I found it impossible to attempt a rescue, or had I failed, they would then proceed by other methods.
Should I succeed, I was to place myself under the orders of the one I rescued, who, being one of the Leaders, would naturally assume control of myself and my companion.
I was given a few minutes to consider this plan, and to make any inquiries which might occur to me, while our course continued in the same direction.
As I reflected upon it, I was conscious of many points which invited criticism. It appeared that the whole expedition was being led into the mountains for no very evident purpose, while I was to take the individual peril and responsibility of the rescue for which it had been designed. If the mountains offered even greater perils, it were the more reason why a different procedure would be adopted.
On the other hand, we were operating under conditions which were in some respects as strange to them as to myself, and for which they might be said to be even more unfit. I was, at least, the only one who carried anything that could be used as an offensive weapon, and there was some justice in the reflection that I came from conditions of life from which the argument of violence was less alien than it was from theirs. Also, the fact that I could not pass the dangers of the mountain way, if it were really so, was unanswerable, and the fact that our opponents could not expect an attack from that direction for so long a time, certainly suggested that I could best be used in the interval in the way they had planned. Whether they expected me to succeed, or regarded me simply as a forlorn hope, or even as a feint attack to disguise a deeper purpose, I could not know. I considered that if I should be successful in effecting the rescue undetected, we might be far on the return journey before the dawn, but that they would arrive after it had certainly been discovered, and with their enemies between them and their retreat, in which case they would have their full share of the peril.
I had, at least, no better plan to propose, and I shortly signified that I had no further questions. I was then told that I must restrain any impulse of violence which I might feel, unless there were no alternative possible, as it developed action on a plane which they despised, and on which they were unaccustomed to operate, and might bring us into additional and incalculable trouble with the Dwellers also, if they should become aware of our expedition, or were already cognisant of it. It was to descend to the level of the Killers themselves.
I write “Killers” as the nearest word I have in which to describe the thought with which she defined our opponents, but it is quite inadequate. Scorn was in it, and loathing, if such feelings can be entirely passionless and judicial, and in it was the whole summary of what they were and did, but centrally there was the conception of them as things that killed continually, and that enjoyed killing, and as such I translate it. These worm-pink horrors with the sucking mouths were too low for any emotion to stir in regarding them. She looked on them as I, whom she regarded as a beast only, look upon one of my own kind who can kill birds for pleasure.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SENTRY
We now came to a place at which another trench extended on the right hand, at right angles to the one we followed, and striking upward toward the mountainside that now rose above us with an abruptness that appeared unscalable. Looking up the straight line of the trench we could not see the defile by which those heights were entered, nor was it easy to imagine that this bleak forbidding precipice was only the first of a wilderness of loftier ridges, from the top of which it would appear almost as low and flat as the plain around us.
We watched the long column of our companions as it proceeded up the narrow trench, at the end of which we saw it emerging on the open hillside, where it must have been visible for many miles to any watchers on the plains below. Then we turned, not without a feeling of loneliness which increased the intimacy of our companionship, and went on at a gentle walk—for the time at our disposal required no haste—in the direction which had been indicated.
Yet the leisured pace had a consequence which might have been disastrous, and the exact result of which I am still unable to determine.
We were engaged in a pleasant intercourse, in which I was realising that the apparent apathy of my companion’s mind in regard to the issue of an expedition for which her Leaders were responsible, which had previously surprised me, did not preclude a keen adventurous delight in an enterprise which had now been entrusted to our own initiative, when I was conscious of a shadow that fell for a moment across the floor of the trench before me, into which the midday sun shone directly downward.
Looking up sharply, I caught sight of an egg-shaped body and two jovially derisive eyes that withdrew at the instant of their detection. Instant also was my thought of the consequences if the news of our coming should go before us, and with that thought I loosed my companion’s hand, and jumped for the side of the trench. The abundant vitality which that grasp supplied me lasted long enough after I had loosed my hold to enable me to grip the edge of the ground two feet above my head, and swing myself on to the surface.
Rising here, I confronted the detected spy not ten feet distant, gazing at me with a glance of humorous contempt, from which doubt and even consternation were not entirely absent. Its body was less round than that of the panther’s victim, being like an egg balanced on two legs, with the thicker end in front, from which the twinkling eyes looked out, with the long trunk curled beneath them.
I realised suddenly that I was not beyond reach of this weapon, and that I was likely to be swept back into the trench with little ceremony, even if no worse befell me. But the next moment I was aware that my companion was beside me.
Whatever brain was in that blue-black body, or courage for the facing of meaner things, it had no will to meet its new antagonist. Nor did the order which she gave it to avoid us even disturb the quietness of the mind that formed it. Accustomed for so long to an unquestioned supremacy over all the creatures that the oceans held, it could not occur to her as a possibility that such a one could resist her will, or disturb her serenity.
Fear was in the cowed but cunning eyes as it moved backward, but when it had retreated for fifty yards or more it suddenly threw up its trunk in a defiant gesture, as of one released from a reluctant hypnotism, and commenced a rapid run toward the farther end of the valley.
As it did this, I realised that I was losing it, and that our lives and the success of our enterprise were at issue.
I unslung the axe from my back, and started in pursuit. But my feet sank deeply in the soft herbage, and I found that speed was impossible. At times, too, the ground itself gave way beneath me, and I stumbled forward with difficulty. Struggle as I might, I saw that the distance was increasing continually.
My companion’s mind called me to return, but I would not heed it.
Then I saw that she also was running, but far out on the left as though she were leaving me.
I was still wallowing forward in a stubborn stupidity when I realised her purpose. She was endeavouring to cut it off, and, running far more swiftly and lightly than either of us, she was soon in a position to do so.
But having gained the advantage, she appeared content to hold it, not closing in, but edging the chase continually toward the higher ground.
I did not understand her purpose till I found myself running upon the hard surface of the hillside, and gaining at every stride. The chased beast knew it also, and turned to face me.
My hunting instinct was roused now, to reinforce my judgment of a compelling necessity, and I was determined to kill it. But I had sufficient caution to pause outside the range of the sweeping trunk that threatened me.
It did not throw itself on its back, as I expected from the conflict which I had witnessed previously, and I began to realise that it had been running not so much to avoid me, as to carry the news to its masters. It might be in awe of my companion’s mind, but toward myself it very certainly had no such feeling.
I became aware that it was advancing upon me.
My companion had paused at a distance, and made no motion to assist me further.
The trunk was waving now within three feet of my face. I swung the axe as it was raised to strike. The sharp blade grazed the tip, and it winced back swiftly.
For some moments we faced each other silently, neither willing to retreat, nor to come within range of the confronting danger. I was on the point of springing in, and risking all on one stroke, when the memory of how the blue-black body had punctured where the claws tore, suggested that I could throw the axe with sufficient force to disable it.
But the throwing of axes is an occupation in which I was quite unpractised. Trying to fling it over the trunk that waved and feinted before me, and with sufficient force to effect my purpose, I misjudged entirely, so that it skimmed the smooth back only, and fell ten or twelve feet behind it.
Reckless, I ran forward to recover the weapon. My antagonist might easily have struck me off my feet as I did so, but it had turned also with the same object.
Not having to turn, I was a second quicker. I stooped for the axe with the consciousness that my opponent was already upon me, and as I seized it I threw it desperately backward.
The next moment I was struck to the ground. I felt the clothes tearing from my back, and turning round I tried to come to grips with the trunk which would otherwise beat the life from my body. As I did so I was conscious that the attack had ceased.
I looked up, and saw my companion standing above us. My antagonist cowed away from her with terrified eyes. The axe I had thrown had stuck into its back, and remained there.
Very quietly she took the haft and drew it out. As she did this a fountain of thin red blood, such as I had seen before, shot up and sparkled in the sunlight.
I rose up, and we stood side by side looking at the creature that made no more resistance, but lay dying before us.
She handed me the axe in silence.
A moment after, she gave me her hand again, and we returned to the trench together. But though I tried to speak, her mind would not answer. She had closed it against me, and for many hours we continued thus, her mind a blank wall of negation at the advances I made continually.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE
Dusk was already rising in the narrow trench, though the world was still bright with the colour of a sun that set early over the mountains, when she addressed me in the medium which is fifty times more swift than speech, and a thousand times more accurate in its transmission of the thoughts which form it.
“How could I answer you till there was peace in my own mind?” she asked me. “I was confused by violence. It is a thing we do not practise, either for defence or aggression. You appear to me to be partly as we are, and in part as the lower order of created things, and with such a body as is more base than either. For the first time in all my life I could not tell what was right to do—to withhold, or to aid you. It seems to me that you must have much sorrow.
“But now I have thought of what is right. It was to you that the charge was given. You were to avoid violence if it were possible. It was left to you to judge of that necessity. The responsibility is not mine. From now you will have my help when you ask it. When I thought this, peace came, by which I know that I have thought rightly.
“For yourself, it came to me, as I saw your mind when you fell, that you have a brave spirit in a body of deplorable weakness. It is full also of strange passions, which you can scarcely control yourself, and for that reason the lowest creatures can defy you. But I saw the spirit that is imprisoned within you, and for that I respect you.
“When we return we will ask the Leaders that all shall think together that your body may be destroyed, and you may escape from its misery.”
I answered, “I am glad that there is peace between us, and some measure of understanding, and for your promise of future help I thank you also. But in the world from which I came my kind is supreme of all created things. Here you despise me, yet you yourselves are not supreme in your world. You fear the Dwellers, who, as I understand, eat and use violence as I do. I understand that you supply them with fish, which seems inconsistent with your objection to the slaughter of meaner creatures around you.”
She replied, “I know that you are telling me the truth as you see it; and some kind of supremacy you may have in your place, though it must be, indeed, a strange one. I cannot suppose that there are other creatures with bodies weaker than yours, more quickly tired, or more awkward. Are all its animals wearers of those tattered things in which you conceal yourself so quaintly?”
I replied, “Our bodies are doubtless better adapted to their familiar conditions than for those in which I now find myself, as our clothes are also. The lower animals—with some unimportant exceptions—have no outer coverings. Should we dispense with our clothes we should consider that we had descended to their level. We wear them from shame, from self-respect, and to enable us to endure the climatic changes, and the severities of the colder portions of the earth on which we dwell.”
“I can well understand,” she said, “that you are ashamed to show your bodies to other animals, or even to each other, but can you really say that you cover them from climatic changes? Your face and hands are bare, which would be of all parts the most sensitive. If you can harden them to such exposure, could you not harden the remainder of your bodies also, and feel the joys of sun and wind and water, as all creatures should?”
“The custom of wearing clothes among my own kind,” I answered, “is very ancient, and is universally practised. Whether it be for warmth or ornament, or from causes more difficult of definition, it would be impossible for any one of us to break it. He would be persecuted or destroyed by his fellows. You must understand that we have no individual freedom. In my own land this loss of discretion has been reduced to an absurdity, there being so many laws to be obeyed that it is impossible for any one—even those who give them unceasing study—to know all that there are. Also, we pay men to make more laws continually, so that, in theory, we may be brought into yet closer bondage, but in practice that is a thing which is barely possible, and as new laws are made, others fall into disuse and forgetfulness, because it is beyond human capacity to observe so many. We do not want more laws, but we have started a machine in which we ourselves are involved, so that we have no power to stop it. Many of us despise the laws that we have already—so far as we understand them—and break them whenever we can do so to our own advantage, and with sufficient secrecy. Others respect them so greatly that they will do mean and base things without shame, if the law require them, thinking it to be sufficient apology.”
“It is too strange,” she answered, “to be understood, unless it be told more fully, and our time is too short for that, but I have not replied to your question concerning the fish-feeding of the Dwellers. I see clearly what you mean, but it is a thing which had been done from the beginning. It was arranged by our Leaders, and we have not thought to question it. It is true that the Dwellers, though they are superior to your kind beyond comparing, are of more animal bodies than we. They must be fed, and their food, in part, is the fish, which themselves live by the destruction of others, and are destroyed by them continually. We divide the shoals and drive those that become excessive into the great tanks which extend beneath the mountains, where the Dwellers do with them as they will. I neither doubt nor excuse it. The mackerel that we drive, or the deep-sea salmon, will eat even of their own kind, and the fruits of death are in their own entrails while we drive them. They obey us, as is natural, without protest, and this thing which we do has never troubled our peace.
“You say that you are supreme, and we are not. I think you can have supremacy only amidst a very low creation. It is something which, until now, we have neither sought nor heeded. In all the oceans we have held it without challenge.
“But I think the difference is not there. It is that you are not sure of yourself. Your own thoughts, or even your own body, may resist your will. You are like the state of which you tell me, wherein laws are confused and changing, and may be broken by those who make them.
“Of all this we know nothing, and therefore, were I in the midst of the Dwellers, whose powers are terrible, I should walk in greater freedom than you could do in your own land, whatever be your supremacy among inferior things. But I am hindering your mind from the adventure which is before us. It is yours to direct it, as our Leaders rightly saw, for we are contending against creatures who are more of your own kind than ours. Let me know what is your purpose, and I will give you all the aid I may, either with mind or body.”
As she concluded thus, we reached the place where the trench we followed stopped abruptly before a rising bank, and we knew that we were at the end of the divided fields, and could no longer travel in the same concealment. Steps led here to a trodden path, which we left immediately for the lesser risk of a hillside which was covered with gigantic boulders, between which we moved cautiously upward, while the day was slowly dying, the western sky showing, for the first time in my experience, something of the sunset-light of my familiar world, in a cloud-born glory of yellow and purple light above the mountains.
My companion answered my thought: “It is the season of storms approaching. In three days’ time there will be cloud, and great winds, and hidden skies. It is nothing to us, but for those that live on the earth’s surface it must be distasteful.”
I made no reply, for at that moment my glance fell on a Browning pistol which lay amongst the loose stones I was treading. In the compelling strangeness of the experiences through which I had passed I had given little thought to those who had come here before me, but I remembered now the arsenal of weapons with which Templeton had returned and vanished.
I looked round, as though expecting him to appear before me. In the growing gloom I searched round for some further sign, but could find nothing. I opened my mind to my companion, but she could not help me, though she searched with keener eyes than mine. I reflected that we were a long distance from the spot on which I—and presumably he, but was that certain?—had first arrived. If he had travelled so far, he might have gone farther. The abandoned pistol was ominous, but perhaps he had only thrown it away because his ammunition was ended. Possibly he had left it there, intending to return. Possibly he dropped it by accident. Anyway, it was useless to me, and I laid it down where I found it.
And as I rose, my companion’s mind, to which I was becoming increasingly sensitive, interjected urgently: “Do not move, or fear. Look up to the right hand.”
The ridge of the rocky hill we climbed stood out sharply against the sunset light behind it, and above it rose the head and shoulders of a giant form. He had stepped over to our side of the ridge, and stood above us, one hand on the crest, as a man might lean his hand on his own gate, and was gazing around, as one who is more occupied with his own thoughts than with a familiar scene beneath him.
So he stayed for a moment, and then descended the hill with giant strides, as the Titans may have moved when they found the earth too small, and thought to own the heavens.
He might have crushed us under foot, as a plough-horse treads a crouching mouse in the furrow, but we stood quiet and unmoving as he went past without seeing us—or so I thought, but my companion differed. “You cannot know the thoughts of the Dwellers,” she told me. “They are not as we, or as you are. They are terrible in power, and, sometimes, in forbearance also. But they are beyond our understanding.”
My own impression was different. I saw a Titan indeed, but one of my own kind, and one, I thought, who was preoccupied with a great perplexity. But whether he had seen us I could not tell.