CHAPTER XVIII
THE ARSENAL OF THE KILLERS
The moon had not yet risen, but the starlight was brilliant, as we climbed the path that led to the stronghold of the Killers.
As we approached it in the darkness it looked larger than it had appeared to me in the vision, and our task more formidable.
At this high altitude the night began to be cold already, and I supposed that the temperature might fall very low before the dawn of the next day. I began to understand why I had found the stillness of the first night so absolute, and why all creatures sought for rest and warmth during a night-time so much longer than our own, and in which the change of temperature might be so much greater.
But I had more urgent considerations to engage my thoughts. To rescue the imprisoned Amphibian from a guarded prison in the midst of the stronghold of the Killers, whether it were attempted by force or strategy, appeared about equally hopeless, but the Leaders had laid this task upon me, and whether they really believed me capable of performing it, or had used me as a pawn in a larger purpose, I was equally committed to the adventure.
My comrade also laid the responsibility upon me, as she clearly had the right to do. I had her promise of unquestioning aid in anything for which I might call upon her, and I had learnt to rely more than a little upon her fearless serenity of mind, as well as upon the abundant physical vitality which she shared with me so freely.
On the other hand, the more I relied upon her powers of spirit or body, the more menacing became the fact that I was braving those who had entrapped one of her own kind, of superior grade to herself, who apparently could not escape unrescued.
Whether they had received warning of our coming I could not tell, but I reflected that even though a report should have reached them that the regiment of the Amphibians had passed into the mountains six score miles away, they would not only suppose that no fear from that quarter would be possible for a day at least (or much longer if they should judge by their own speed of progression), but might not even think that any hostility to themselves were intended, nor might it occur to them as possible that an attack would be made in the night-time, when they might suppose the custom of rest to be universal.
Even if they knew that two of us were wandering on the lower slopes, we might only appear to them as prey to be sought in the morning, and, I thought, with a sudden lightening of humour, they might be right in their estimate.
On the balance of probabilities, I thought the better course would be to approach them boldly, and try what might be done in secrecy while the darkness was round us.
Indeed, when we gained the plateau, caution lacked opportunity, if we were to advance at all. For outside the enclosure it was bare and flat beneath the starlight, and a rat could have found no shelter.
Having crossed the open space as quietly as we could, we walked for some distance along the outside of the enclosure. It was a back-sloping wall, or roof, as I had seen it before, having no door or window in all its length; but knowing that there were doors along the inner side, and that the Killers slept within it, and not knowing how lightly they might do so, or how thin might be the wall that divided us from them, we now moved very silently till we came to the gateway. Here we paused in surprise, for it was not only unguarded, but open.
There was a double gate that opened inward. Sockets were faintly visible in the ground, into which vertical bolts could be driven to secure them.
You know how a fox will use all its cunning to find some illicit entrance to the poultry house, but will turn away from open door or window, lest a trap be concealed behind the apparent negligence? So I felt as I looked, and saw something dimly on the ground behind the gateway, and hesitated, and remembered that the night was long, and haste was needless, and asked my companion how soon would be the moonrise.
In the end, we went back and waited under the edge of the plateau.
It is commonly held that the capacity of the average woman for logical reasoning is inferior to that of a man, but that she has a compensating advantage in a superior ability of intuitive perception, and may even reach a more correct conclusion in some instances by such unreasoned cognition, than a man will do by the exercise of a superior logical faculty.
Whatever impressions of femininity my companion might give in other aspects, it is certain that in this comparison she was more masculine than myself, and the light which I had given her into the workings of my own mind—for, in view of our understanding, I had been careful to open it to her as I had considered the various possibilities which might affect the success of our enterprise—had aroused a wonder which she now expressed with her usual clarity.
“It appears,” she considered, “that there is a difference between the processes of your mind and mine. When I encounter a difficulty which requires decision, I reflect upon it systematically and thoroughly. It may be a long time before I arrive at any possible conclusion, but, when I have done so, it is final. You appear to make choices, and to decide plans, without always having recognised your reasons—if such there be—even in your own mind, and you would be unable to explain them to another if you wished to do so. This method appears to be the cause of much hesitation, worry, and discord, by which your mind is drained of its energy to no sufficient purpose, and of actions which are contradictory or indecisive. There are even times when you appear not to be acting either by reason, or by your own will, but to have surrendered your personality to the body which it inhabits. This is repulsive to me, because I cannot conceive of a reasoning spirit being reduced to a baser servitude. Fear is good, and it would be a poor kind of body which did not give you that warning. But your body is not content with warning, it attempts control, and if you refuse obedience, you do so with difficulty. I think that this arises because your mind is not sure of itself, and your body lacks respect for its weakness. Then your physical impulses fight among themselves for supremacy, and you have no power to rule them. When I look into your mind I see also that it has little knowledge, as it has little control, of the body in which it dwells, of which the major functions are carried on quite independently of its volition, and of the existence of which it may even be entirely ignorant.
“In all these respects you might be considered inferior to ourselves. I think you are so; and I recognise the admiration you feel for our larger measure of control, both of ourselves and of the creatures that surround us. Certainly I would not be like you. It would be as though we should be eaten by our own dogs. But when I see how your mind endures amidst such surroundings I am unable to despise you. I seem as one who swims with a friendly tide, and can make no boast, though she outdistance one who fights onward amidst contrary and contending currents. Therefore, I think God may judge you the prize at last, though He has given you a body that is lower than that of a sea-dog, and a mind that has no power to control it, and that walks in circles.
“I see further, that your own methods of inductive reasoning, casual as they are, may be more appropriate to the fluctuating barbarism of the conditions of life to which you are native than would be those to which we are accustomed, and I know surely that you can use your own methods to better purpose than I could possibly do.”
By this time a crescent moon was rising behind us, among stars that shone with a frosty brightness, and a cold wind moved over the plateau as we crossed it once more, so that I shivered in the torn and shredded garments that I had sewn together, as best I might, when the halts had permitted.
We came again to the vague menace of the open gateway. In the clearer light we saw that objects lay on the ground immediately within it, reminding me of the twisted bands of hay which farmers sometimes use for the binding of fodder, and before them were shallow shining oval depressions, as though moulds had been lifted from them.
Neither of us could make any guess as to what they were, or of what they might be significant, but of one thing I was certain, they had not been there when I saw the Killers draw their roped prey through the gateway; nor were they appropriate for a free passage.
There is a fear that comes when the nerves revolt from a danger which they perceive, which my companion had deprecated, but there is another that arises from a reasoned caution, which it is often well to heed, though the physical frame would disregard it.
I knew that my comrade’s mind approved, when I turned from that unknown fear, and continued along the wall to select a spot at which we should attempt to scale it.
Of itself, it gave no choice, being everywhere of the same height and smoothness, and leaning at the same angle. Everywhere, so far as my observation had shown, it was inhabited by the Killers, but whether in separate cells, or whether the numerous openings led into one common living chamber, I had no means of telling.
The only choice lay in selecting the nearest spot to our objective inside the enclosure, and this we did as far as memory and judgment enabled us to determine it.
The sides of the wall or dwelling, were about ten feet high, and sloping together at such an angle that the inner floor (without deducting the thickness of the walls, of which we had no knowledge) must have been about eight feet in width. The walls inside must have narrowed rapidly upward, suggesting that the Killers required little space for comfort during their long night’s rest. Of ventilation there was no sign whatever.
The outer side, being quite smooth, was far too steep to be climbed, and we scaled it at last by my companion leaning against it while I mounted her shoulders and gripped the ridge. When I had a firm hold she caught my foot and climbed up very lightly, and then, with her help, I was soon astride the ridge, and the descent was easy. Our only real difficulty was to do it in silence. We had to move along the ridge for a short distance before descending, as we found ourselves directly over one of the apertures by which they entered. It was fortunate for us that we took this precaution, for when we had reached the ground, and moved cautiously across the doorway, we found that it was closed by a door which slid down from the inside, but not entirely so. It came to within about three inches of the ground, and beneath it protruded three of the long suckers, which were the mouths of the Killers. Moving onward, we saw that similar suckers were thrust out from every doorway, which at least explained in part the omission of any higher apertures by which air or light could reach them.
There was a wide bare space between the outer wall in which they slept, and the buildings we were seeking. Of these there were eight in all, each of which must have had its place in the social economy of those loathsome creatures, but we were concerned with two only, and of the others I learnt nothing, either then or later.
As we had been told that the building in which they stored their weapons during the night was left unguarded, I had determined to proceed there first, and if I were able to enter it without detection I had resolved to remain, while my companion went forward alone to the killing-pens, and endeavoured to establish communication with her imprisoned Leader. I calculated that she would be more easily able to do this than I, and the distance separating us would not be too great for her to communicate with me, so that I should know exactly what was occurring. If she were disturbed, she could return to me more quickly than any Killer could pursue her. If a diversion were necessary, I could easily make sufficient noise to draw the investigation in my direction. For two to go in the first instance would double the risk of detection, without any compensating advantage. If my aid were desirable after the first reconnoitre, and no alarm had been raised, I could easily join her. If an alarm were raised, I supposed that they would make first for the place in which their arms were stored, and in that case it was our only hope of safety that someone should be there to bar the access.
So I reasoned, not entirely at ease in thinking that I had allotted her a part which might prove the more perilous, but yet seeing that it would be a double folly to reverse our undertakings, and content that she knew my motives, and approved the plan.
I think, in her own way, she was as keen as myself that we should effect the rescue before the Leaders came to interpose their own methods, or take direction of those which we had already formulated. I know that it was in a state of controlled excitement, which approached the ecstatic, though it left her mind in its accustomed serenity, that she went with me hand-in-hand across the moonlight space, which we did not cross till we had reached a point at which the other buildings would hide us from any watchers at the killing-pens, if such there were.
By this means we reached the arsenal in safety, and stood beneath thick walls of some smooth hard substance, having a low flat roof, and a door at one end which showed no handle or fastening of any kind upon the outer side.
I still think that the plan I made was in itself the best that could have been devised from the facts as I knew them, but I admit that I was less cautious here than I had been at the outer gate. Perhaps the silence, and the fact that we had advanced to this point so easily, had given me a feeling of too great security. Anyway, I can only tell what happened, and you must judge it as you will.
I passed my hand down the door, in the shadow of the jamb, feeling for a catch which the light might be insufficient to show me, when it yielded to the slight pressure I gave, and opened gently. Then I pushed it wider, and we entered together. We stood for a moment in the entrance, side by side, looking into the dark interior, which was only very faintly lighted by two small windows at the sides of the door. The long side-walls, the far end, and the roof, were without lighting entirely. The moon shone through the two small windows, and patterned a bare floor with the horizontal bars that crossed them.
We stood there for a moment, and then my comrade slipped quietly from me, and vanished in the shadow of the darker side of the building.
Thinking to sample some of the weapons which I knew to be stored there, I stepped inward, loosing the door as I did so. Smoothly and swiftly it closed behind me, with a slight ominous sound, to which the night gave full value. It had a menace of finality, and my heart paused as I heard it.
The next moment I recalled my courage and stepped back to reopen it. My foot sounded loudly in the stillness, and something moved in the dark roof that was not more than three feet overhead. With nervous haste I felt down the inside of the door, but, as upon the outside, there was no indication of lock or latch or handle. I thought to prise it open with the axe-blade, but it fitted so closely that I could only find the crack with difficulty and to force the blade in was impossible.
Was I to be imprisoned here till the light came, and then hurried out to such a fate as I had seen dealt to another of their captives? Or did the stealthy movement above me imply an even nearer menace? I raised the axe, and brought it down with all my force on the door, in the hope that it would split beneath it, and careless of the noise I made. Noise there was in the narrow chamber and beyond it also, as I was soon to learn; but the door did not even shake to the blow. It was of so hard a substance, whether of wood or metal, that I realised that it would be the axe-edge only which would suffer should I continue.
The movements overhead were louder now, and I had the impression that something was about to spring down from the darkness. The fear of the unknown was upon me, which is of all fears the most dreadful.
CHAPTER XIX
THE DUEL IN THE NIGHT
I think we do less than justice to the alchemists of the dark ages of Europe, and to their opponents also. We are accustomed to regard them as charlatans, and to brand those as superstitious fools who burnt them. There is a folly of credulity, but there is a folly of incredulity, which is far greater.
If they asked their patrons for money which would enable them to turn lead into gold, the scientist of to-day is approaching the same point of research which they must have reached when the possibility dawned upon them. Perhaps his own progress would have been more rapid had he been readier to assume that their theories were deserving of as much respect as his own. It is not many years since it was announced as a momentous discovery that bubonic plague is distributed by rats. This was known to the Egyptian priesthood, and the information was available in one of the oldest books in the world for any one who cared to read it. But that was a superstition only! No doubt there are other “superstitions” in the same book which we shall believe when we have rediscovered them.
On the other hand, it was realised by those among whom the alchemists practised that they were the repositories of an esoteric knowledge, the extent and power of which could be only dimly imagined, and of which there was no guarantee that it would be used beneficently. Even now, a scientist will present his fellow-men with a more nutritious infants’ food, or a deadlier poison-gas, than has been previously invented, with the same fatuous complacency. The evil eye may have been fact or imagination. I do not know. It is no more inherently improbable than wireless telegraphy.
But it is the unknown that terrifies. I do not suppose that the Killers were exceptionally intelligent. All the evidence is against it. Yet this episode of the closing door, because it was beyond my understanding, was more daunting than would have been a far more urgent danger of a familiar kind. I stood there in a panic fear which it shames me to remember, feeling that I was surrounded by those who watched and mocked in the darkness.
I think, also, that the increasing cold of the night, and the loss of my companion’s vitality, may have assisted to depress me. Anyway, I stood there for some time, afraid to move, in a terror more abject than anything I had felt since I waited for the first dawn, on the mystery of the opal pavement.
Nothing happened. The noises ceased in the roof. The moon clouded, and the narrow windows darkened.
At last, I stepped up to one of them, and saw that a fine sleet was falling without. For the first time, with a start of shame, I recalled my companion. I had promised to keep my mind in touch with hers, and had forgotten her entirely while I shrank from shadows.
The next moment we were in communication. She had been waiting to report, and to hear from me, in a natural doubt as to the meaning of my silence, but her thought showed no agitation, and learning that she was in apparent security, and that her own report had no urgency, I first explained what had happened. What she thought I cannot say, for her mind closed for a moment. Then it answered quietly: “Shall I come back and push it open again? Perhaps I had better tell you first what I have seen and heard.
“First, there is the open tank, which was boiling, as when you saw it. There are few bodies in it. I suppose it is kept boiling continually. Beyond this are the killing-sheds. There are two of these. Each consists of ten apartments. One is empty. The other is filled. Each compartment consists of four walls of metal bars, and a roof of a very hard material. Probably it is the same as the door that has shut you in. The floors are of bars only. The boiling water extends beneath. Three days before the feast the bars will be withdrawn, and the victims will fall into the vat. I have spoken to my Leader, and this she told me. The feast is four days from now. She will say nothing, as the Leaders have decided it, but I think she has no desire to be rescued. The other nine cells are filled by victims that the Dwellers have given them. She says that these are creatures that have offended the Dwellers. They are like my description of you, but with wings.
“There is one entrance only, from which the two sheds branch. It is at the further end: an open archway. One of the archers guards it, with six of the smaller Killers. They were all sleeping when I first approached, but the noise you made woke one of them, and he roused the others. Four of them have scattered now to search round the buildings. If one should come to the arsenal it will be well that he find the door closed. If it be pushed open, you will know that it is he, not I, and you can strike quickly, if you wish to do so. The smaller Killers carry a strangling-cord, and a short javelin. It is two feet long, and for a third of its length it is sharpened on both sides. It is balanced for throwing. The smaller Killers are without intellect. They have only greed, and cunning, and ferocity. The archers are in every way more dangerous. The smaller Killers obey them. They cannot communicate by thought, but signal to each other by whistling noises, which they make through their suckers.
“I am in no danger. I can move more quickly and silently than they can search in the shadows. I am lying now in the steam of the vat, which is dense on the side to which the wind moves it. They have searched here already and will not....”
My mind broke in: “The door is opening. Wait.”
I stood with the axe lifted to strike, as the door moved softly.
The drift of sleet was over, and the moon shone again on the entrance.
Cautiously, as the door opened, a head came round it, about three feet from the ground. I brought the axe down with all my force, but the Killer dodged very swiftly, and avoided it, slipping past me into the dark interior.
Losing its mark, the axe glanced off the edge of the door, barely missing my foot, the side of the axe-head striking the ankle-bone so sharply that I lost my footing and was on my knee for a moment. As I slipped, I heard the whizz of the javelin that passed above me. The Killer had turned and thrown it so quickly that it passed out over my head, through the gap of the closing door.
As the door clicked, I sank lower, listening for a sound of my opponent in the darkness, and thinking with a moment’s satisfaction that he had now lost his weapon beyond recovery. Then, with fear, that he must be surrounded by other weapons, of which he would know the positions, and that any moment a javelin might transfix me.
I think it partly redeemed the dishonour of my previous cowardice, from which all the trouble came, that I thought at this extremity to warn my companion not to come into the same danger. I could not have imagined that I should be saving my own life as I did so. Quick as a thought came the answer: “I will wait as you wish. I have told my Leader. She says, ‘Do not move. Put your hand on your neck with the palm outward. He will not think of other weapons until he has tried the strangling-cord. It is forbidden to use the weapons of others, and his sense is small.’”
Deadly peril and quick thought are comrades ever. At the instant, something soft and slimy flicked my face, and drew backward. It was round my neck the next moment, but my hand was there already.
Soft and slimy, and very cold, it tightened, not with a steady pressure, but by a succession of contractile spasms, through which I realised with a new horror that the cord itself was as living as the arm that threw it.
But for my hand, I should have been strangled instantly. As it was, my utmost straining hardly sufficed for breathing, and I knew that I must act quickly. The Killer, supposing that I must already be reduced to impotence, was endeavouring to drag me toward him by the living rope he held.
An idea came to me. I loosed the axe, and drawing out the clasp-knife, I opened it with my teeth. Then, with a sudden wrench of the left hand, I got space for a moment to thrust it up within the ring, so that as the pressure came again it closed on the sharp blade and helped to cut itself as it did so. I pressed the knife outward with all my strength and the next instant the deadly noose had parted.
I snatched at the loathsome cord as it writhed backward, let the knife drop, caught at the axe with my free hand, and allowed myself to be dragged forward.
Simple in conception, I realised now that my idea was more difficult in execution. My opponent no doubt considered me to be strangled and insensible. My intention was to take him by surprise, and to strike him down with a sudden blow. But where he stood was in absolute darkness, and I did not know the length of the cord. If I rose too soon, in the half-light of the central chamber, I should defeat my purpose, even if I were not an easy mark for any weapon he had available. If I waited too long it might be equally disastrous.
Fortune helped me. He moved his foot as the cord shortened. He was within three feet of where I lay as he did so. I loosed the cord, so that he staggered back as the weight left it. Then I leapt, and struck. The blow must have caught him fairly on the side, but (as I knew afterward) it did not break the skin. The body gave way before it, and was flung against the wall, with a great rattling of the arms upon it. I struck again, missing him, I think, but with a blow that swept the wall and scattered the javelins.
Pandemonium followed. With a high whistling squeal he fled down the dark hall and, knowing it to be my one chance to give him no time for recovery, I followed blindly, with sweeping blows that got him more than once, and raked the walls of their weapons. It drowned the rustling in the roof, which had gone unheeded through the more urgent dangers, and which had been accompanied at times by a plaintive chattering noise, by no means formidable.
It is curious that it was while I chased him thus, in the height of the uproar and physical exertion, that my mind found leisure to recall my companion, and to tell her what was happening. She answered me with the unhurried speed which was her characteristic in moments of crisis. “The whole settlement is awake. I think they hear you. They are running across the enclosure. The five here, which are armed, are also coming. I cannot join you, even now, unless I run very swiftly. Shall I come?”
I answered, “If you will,” and knew that she was already running across the open, at a pace no Killer could match for a moment.
It was just then that I really got him. My earlier blows had only thrown him from side to side, buffeted but not broken, while he retaliated more than once with a thrown javelin, not without result, as was shown by a foot that limped, even in the midst of this urgency. But this time the stroke caught his left leg with the wall behind it, and cut it cleanly through. He fell on the floor, in a place where the moon still lighted it. As he did so, I struck again, and the soft toughness of the elastic body, which gave way so easily in a free space, burst when the blow came with the hard floor beneath it. The contents ran out over the floor like an over-ripe tomato, or so it seemed in the moonlight. It was an uglier sight when the day found it.
The door was moved swiftly, and my companion was beside me.
CHAPTER XX
THE BOW
The next moment a rush of the Killers broke upon the door through which she had slipped, but it did not yield. With far better sight than mine in the darkness, and with a cool detachment of mind, which did not seem to be affected by her ecstatic delight at the swift movement of the adventure, she had noticed instantly that, though the door had no fastening, there were slots in the wall—three each side—and heavy bars propped against it to fit them.
Lightly lifted, the first bar fell into place as the rush of the Killers reached the entrance.
As she placed the other bars she told me, “There is one of the great bows, and a bundle of shafts on the wall behind you—You don’t see at night as I do?—They’re about the only things that are left on the wall.” (Her mind smiled as she thought of it.) “Do you always make so much commotion when you kill anything? The archer shot me as I ran. He shot straight. I heard the shaft coming behind me. My mind became like yours. I was uncertain what to do, and had no time to think thoroughly. I did not know whether I had will-power enough to turn the shaft. I leapt up. It passed between my thighs as I did so. It cut the fur of one, but without breaking the skin.” “That isn’t serious,” my mind interjected, with a thought on my own wounded foot. “It may be,” she answered. “I should have bent aside. It’s absurd to be caught in such a way, because my thought failed me. I never understood so clearly before how you live and think. It must be all chance and guessing. The shaft went on into the crowd of the Killers that were running from the sleeping-places. They all whistled with fear. They are great cowards. I could not see that it struck any of them.”
As our thoughts crossed, I had felt along the wall, and found the bow. It was five feet in length or more, bent for use, and of such strength that I doubted whether I could handle it. I found the shafts, and fixing one on the cord, I stepped to the left-hand window, risking any missile they might throw, but protected somewhat by the darkness behind me. It was about four feet from the ground, and about four feet broad, but not more than a foot high, and with two horizontal bars crossing it, about four inches apart.
As the ordinary Killers were about three feet high, they were below its level as they crowded round the door. There was an excited hubbub of whistling and whining noises, their suckers waggling in every direction as they all talked at once and found no listeners—or so I thought.
Then they were silenced by the higher note of the archer behind them. Evidently he gave them an order to move aside, for they quickly cleared on either hand, till the space was bare before him. With his five supporters beside him, their javelins in readiness, he advanced, bow in hand, toward the window.
I thought that I had better get my shot in first, if I wished to have any further interest in the adventure. I noticed with a flicker of amusement that my companion’s mind was of the same opinion. I thought she was learning fast—or was she coming down to my level?
It was a very bow of Ulysses. I pulled it back with difficulty, and the arrow leapt from the cord with little aiming. It rose high over the heads of the advancing line, and—amazing fluke!—it struck the other archer—(there were only two of these monsters who were adult and vigorous)—who was coming up behind them, and whom I had not seen at all till the shaft hit him.
He was not seriously hurt, as we learnt afterwards, but had that one arrow ended half the pack the immediate result could not have been more decisive. Right and left they scattered, with a discordant clamour of whistling signals, till the whole space was empty before us.
I was feeling the relief natural to a timid nature at the withdrawal of an instant danger, and an illogical satisfaction at the result of my clumsy shot, when my mood was changed by the realisation of the laughing gaiety of my companion’s mind.
If I were in a world of strange sights and chances, it was in many ways more native to me than to her, and a condition of existence in which you directed your body to do something within its capacity and it did quite differently, had a weirdness beyond her experience or imagination.
“It seems to me,” she thought, still mirthfully, “that your life in any world must be a succession of unexpected happenings, and I begin to understand why you seem to me both so brave and so cowardly. I would gladly give a hundred years of my life for a day in your company. But we may give more than either of us wish, if we disregard what the Killers are doing. You should judge their ways better than I, being more nearly of their kind; do you think they will attack us again, and how?”
I answered, “They are not of my kind at all, but very loathsome vermin. I don’t think they will attack us again very quickly. I suppose we have most of their weapons here. Also, this place seems to be designed for defence—though against what we have no means of knowing. The bars on the inside show its intention. I suppose they kept their arms here because they would retire here in any emergency. Then, we are in a world which is not used to action in the night. They may feel the cold more than we do. The fact that we have wounded or killed one of their leaders at the first attempt will dispirit them. Unless there be another entrance, which is our greatest danger, I think we shall be safe till the light comes.”
She replied, “But shall we wait till dawn without action? How will that help us? At least, if you are right, we shall have time for clearer thinking. Let us go to the farther end.”
She led the way, for it seemed that her sight was little less in the dark than in the daytime, telling me, as she did so, that she saw no sign of any entrance, and we rested at the farther end.
Even if we decided to wait till dawn, the prospect was not pleasant. It could not be a less space away than three nights of my familiar time. I became aware that my left foot was very painful, and that the boot was full of blood. I was hungry also, tired, and very thirsty. The night, even in this shelter, was very cold. Outside, it was fine again, and the moon still shone through the windows.
I knew that my companion felt no need of food or drink, and the thin striped body seemed indifferent to heat or cold, and while I had held her hand, and shared her vitality, the call for food had been dormant in myself also. But I had fought out this last struggle unaided, and it was long since I had eaten, though I had drunk deeply at a spring on the hillside as the dusk was falling.
“Your foot is hurt,” she thought, “can we mend it?” I took off the boot—what was left of it—and pulled away the remains of a clotted sock, but it was too dark for me to see the wound. With a feeling of relief unspeakable, I knew that the small webbed fingers were on it, with a vitality that thudded through the whole of my exhausted body. She said, “The javelin must have struck aslant, across the front of the foot, and entered where the string held the boot together. It did not cut deeply enough to keep its place, and must have fallen as the foot moved. I think it will heal quite easily. I suppose you are of a kind that grows again without difficulty. I know among the sea-creatures that the lower the form of the body the more easily it unites or grows, if it be torn or shredded. May I clean and close it?”
I know it was done very delicately, and the wound was trivial. A small furred finger cleaned and searched it, so that it began to bleed freshly. “I am going to tear a little skin from its sides, because it is so unclean. Do you mind?” she asked. Of course, I assented. It felt to me that it was more than a little. I think the vitality that her hand gave made the pain greater.
“If you slept,” she suggested, “and I kept my hand here, I think it would be well in a short time, and your body would be fit for use. It is no good to us now.”
I have noticed among my kind, that there is nothing that draws us together so intimately as the common sharing of any physical danger; perhaps it was from this cause in part, perhaps in part that the method of our communication established an intimacy of a kind of which—however commonplace to her—I had no previous experience, perhaps, also, that the very difference of our minds attracted me, but, from whatever cause, I was aware of an attachment to this creature, who, I told myself, was less like a man than a seal, and had no sex as we understand it, such as I had never felt for any earthly woman.
As I lay there, at the gate of sleep, the slim webbed hand that pressed my foot was the dearest thing that any world contained, and half-a-million years had no power to divide us.
And then—for one incautious instant—she let me see her mind, and I knew how she regarded me.
I remember once, at a call of urgency, I volunteered to assist a shepherd who was ministering to some neglected sheep, which had been bitten by blow-flies. The grubs had hatched in the wounds, and had burrowed inward. The sores had festered, and some had become cavities several inches deep, laying bare bone and flesh, or going down to the vital organs themselves, and in them were a mass of grubs that burrowed and fed.
Some of the sheep lay dying, others might be saved if prompt attention were paid to the wounds.
I still remember acutely the repulsion with which I touched and cleansed, and dressed them. Others might have felt it less, but from such things I am constitutionally averse.
But the feeling was mild to the repulsion with which she regarded the foot on which her fingers rested. It was different in quality, because she had a mind which saw clearly what should be done, and a body that did not dream of rebellion; but it remained that she regarded the foot she touched as something more grotesque and repulsive than her familiar fishes, which swam in the clean flood, and that she felt as I might have done, had duty called me to minister to one of the Killers—to touch the worm-pink sliminess of the loathsome body while it waved its sucker in a whistling gratitude for my attentions.
She knew her error instantly. “I should not have shown you. All is well. Sleep. I will think of it thoroughly. Besides, I must communicate with our Leader.”
Then her mind closed entirely; and after a time I slept.
CHAPTER XXI
THE BAT-WINGS
When I waked, the long night was far spent, and the moonlight had left the window. My companion’s hand was still laid closely upon the injured foot, and as I stirred, her thought met me.
“I have much to tell. Lie still, and listen.
“First, of ourselves. It is true that your body is, to me, a thing both absurd and repulsive. But should this divide us? My own body does not wear out, and, if injured, in most cases can be repaired, though not easily. I know that I exist independently of it, and that I am separate from it, even though I am in it, perhaps, for ever.
“Your body is of little use, and you control it imperfectly. It needs constant repair, and it is of a kind that wears out very rapidly. What you do afterward, or whether you continue at all, is doubtful even to yourself, though in that, I suppose, you are misled by your body’s impermanence. Whether you could be provided with such a body as mine, or whether you could use it, I do not know. My Leaders might, but in such matters we have little knowledge. The Dwellers know much of these things, as you will understand from what I am about to tell you. If you have the courage to ask them, they can tell you much, if they will; but they may destroy you at once, if they think it needful.
“Still, you have little to lose, for such a body cannot be of much account, even to its owner, and it may be worth attempting. If you should succeed, we could be companions for always, for it seems to me that there are ways in which you are greater than I. If I dislike the body in which you live, it should have no power to divide us. I may dislike the killing-pens, but do I therefore dislike my Leader because she is in them? I know that you dislike my body also, because it is strange to you, though it is in all ways better made, and is perfect for the uses for which I need it.”
I answered, “I do not think my body is of little account, and I have no mind that the Dwellers should destroy it, till I have an assurance of something better, which you cannot give. It is true that in some ways you repel me, and that I know best how well I love you when we are both in darkness. But what you say is right, and generous also. My foot feels well, and I am refreshed and rested. Tell me what you have learnt, and we will decide what can be done before morning finds us.”
She replied, “I have been told much by my Leader, and some of the things are very strange. You may understand them better than I do. She is in no fear for herself, and might have escaped before, had she been in haste to do so. She was caught in a deep pit, the top of which was covered over, in a way the Killers use to capture their prey. As she fell, she found that many of the strangling-cords, of which you have had some experience, closed round her. They are like living worms, having no head, but with an instinct to bind anything which they strike, or which strikes them. The Killers know how to carry them safely. It is from these that we have most to fear, if we should be attacked again, or should ourselves attack them. They all have these cords, which they keep with them both night and day.
“She was not strangled, but was so tightly bound that she could not escape when they found her a few minutes later. Had there been more time for thought she would certainly have seen a way to escape them. She found her will had no power whatever against the cords. They had no minds that she could subject to hers. There is such life in the oceans—too low for us to influence it. That is a mystery to us, but I cannot talk of it now.
“When the Killers arrived, she confused them for a time by the serenity of her mind, but, as more collected, and they became very eager to capture her, as a strange prey for the coming feast, she found it increasingly difficult to hold them back, and she determined to save her power and to see what they would attempt.
“They then bound her with many ropes and removed the cords, (which relax after a time, and are useless till their vigour returns), and carried her to the pen, where she has remained ever since. As its only exit is through the bars of the floor, and the vat beneath is flooded with the boiling water, they left the ropes loose, so that she was soon able to free herself. In this they showed their stupidity. Because the boiling water would kill such things as themselves they supposed that it would kill her. So she resolved to wait till the bars should be withdrawn, and learn what she might of the strange world she had entered.”
“Do you mean,” I asked, “that the heat of fire or water has no power over your bodies?”
“No,” she said, “of fire I know less, but water of such heat would destroy us if we were to attempt to breathe it. There are boiling springs beneath the ocean, and it was in one of these that the one damaged her body beyond remedy, of whom I told you. But we often swim those springs in safety. No water of any temperature can penetrate our fur, nor can it be injured by such means. We have, therefore, to swim with closed gills and eyes, and with other precautions. We cannot breathe or see, nor dare we attempt either until we are quite sure that we are in cooler water again.
“My Leader’s intention was not easy. It was to dive blindly into the boiling water as soon as the bars were withdrawn; to swim to the nearest side of the vat where it extends beyond the pens that are built above it; to clamber out of it, and trust to her speed for safety. She had considered every possibility, and had decided that she could do it, so that it concerned her mind no further. Our coming has altered this.
“It was the thought that I may have to swim in such water, and shall be injured, that caused me to blame my own folly when I allowed the arrow to graze me. In such event the scars on my right arm would give me trouble sufficient, though they are not as a fresh wound.
“Being in the pens, and having resolved on her own course of action, she attempted to establish communication with the creatures which were in the other compartments. She found, after a time, that she was able to do so. She learnt that they are not creatures of this age at all, and they are so like you in mind—(though in some ways baser)—that when I told her of you she first supposed that another of their kind had escaped the custody of the Dwellers.
“They told her this. In the interior where they live, the Dwellers have captive specimens of the inhabitants of many bygone ages. These they keep under such conditions as approximate to those from which they come, so that they may study their habits and acquire their knowledge, if they should have any which may be worth recording.
“Sometimes, part or all of a collection of these specimens are condemned to destruction because they do something which the Dwellers regard as intolerable, though it may be, to them, a natural action.
“The nine creatures now awaiting death have been condemned in this way. My Leader tells me that they are not worth saving, as you will agree when you hear their own account of their condemnation.
“They say that they were the controlling race on the earth’s surface about 200,000 years ago. When I learnt this I remembered that you had said that you came of a race 300,000 years more ancient, and I asked my Leader to inquire whether the Dwellers had any specimens of your race also.
“They replied that they did not know, as they had never left their own reservation until this undeserved (as they considered) catastrophe had fallen upon them, but from their own knowledge of the civilisations which had preceded their own, they should think it unlikely. They said that the time mentioned was one at which there was a race of men existing for a short period, too transient and too barbarous for the Dwellers to be likely to consider them worthy of any study. Of all the myriad creations that the earth has known before and since, they were in some ways the most abortive. Although they only occupied, at their most numerous time, about one-half of the earth’s surface, they are believed to have destroyed themselves for fear of their own fecundity. They killed each other in many violent ways, and rewarded those who devised fresh methods for their own destruction. The stench of their diseases rose in the sky till the other planets protested, and there would certainly have been a Divine intervention, had they not destroyed themselves, as I have told you.
“All this may be true, or not. You can judge of that. The creatures that tell it believe themselves to be much better, but are of a very filthy kind. Their appearances may be better than yours, but their minds are worse. I will show them to you, as my Leader has given them to me.”
She then gave me a picture which was as vivid in her thought as though I stood at the side of the killing-pens, and looked through the steam at those who were confined within them.
The first I saw was of the size and shape of a man, the body very thickly and grossly formed, and of a dark sepia colour, irregularly blotched with yellow, in some places as light as sulphur.
It sat cross-legged. It had a heavy head, which hung forward; the nose was very large and horny, like a vulture’s beak. The natural impression of the face was rapacious and cruel, but it had now an appearance of abject and hopeless misery, which was almost comic, through all its tragic reality.
It had large bat-wings, wide open on either side, and as it crouched thus, with wings extended, it appeared to me as though it were seeking a space beneath an umbrella which was not sufficient to cover it.
There were six more of these creatures—all males. There were two others—one male, one female—alike, except that their faces, though equally brutal, were less intelligent, and that their wings were closed when I saw them.
My companion interpreted—“The seven were judges, and the two were witnesses in a recent trial which has brought them all to this end, very justly. The seven cannot close their wings, which are broken at birth in recognition that they are of a high caste which does no work.” (I thought of the finger-nails of a Chinese mandarin, but I was too much interested in the tale which her Leader had obtained from them to break her thought to discuss it.)
“The other two can use their wings, but they do not fly as a bird does. They can use them only to flutter up to the perches on which they sleep. It appears that there is some reason in their own land why they should not sleep on the ground, but it was not explained.
“The two came before the judges with a complaint against a female of their kind. She had been short of food, which, it seems, is divided among them according to certain duties which they fulfil, which are sometimes very difficult to complete, or from attempting which they might even be forbidden by others who have more power than themselves.
“Lacking food, and knowing that these two had it in plenty, she asked them for some, which they refused to give. She then took it, while they were absent.
“The judges did not punish these two who had refused food to the one who needed it, and who were not ashamed of the tale they told.
“They decided that the one who had taken the food she needed should be beaten.
“They did not know that there was any world beyond that in which they lived, or that the Dwellers existed.
“But the Dwellers had watched them, and it appears that they were appalled at the wickedness of the creatures that they had caused to continue, when nature would have destroyed them. They intended at first to end the colony, thinking that they had no right to let such creatures live, whatever they might learn by observing them, but in the end they relented.
“They have removed these nine for the fate they merit, and have deputed one of themselves to endeavour to teach the first decencies of existence to the remainder of their kind.
“The Dwellers can be very merciful.”
I answered, “The tale is strange enough, but it contains some things which are less so to me than they must be to you, for I have known of such in my own time and race. But there is one thing that puzzles me. When these creatures have fallen into the boiling tanks, and their bodies have become sodden with heat, and the Killers have sucked them in, it will be an end of their bodies surely, and the bodies of the Killers (who may be no better, though, it is true, we know no such thing of them, as you have told of these) will benefit.
“But that is their bodies only. If these creatures exist apart from their bodies, what is gained?”
She said, “If you cannot answer that, neither can I. It is a thing of which I have never thought till now, for all this is very new. The Dwellers, who have many thoughts, and who do things, may know, but I begin to suppose that, though they are so much greater than you, they may sometimes change and blunder, as you do. I have also blundered since I followed you in the doing of new things. They may know what you ask, but, for me, it is too difficult.”
CHAPTER XXII
NIGHT IN THE ARSENAL
It was now very cold, and, had I been alone, I should have suffered intensely. She asked me if any plan had formed while I rested, and I replied that I had thought of many things, but that it was always difficult for me to make up my mind quickly, unless circumstances were urgent. The night was still young. We could unbar the door, if we would, but, if we were not attacked again, we could not open it. This was a difficulty that spoilt almost any plan for aggressive action. If her Leader could really swim the boiling tank in safety, the time might come when she could release us, if we should still require it, but this was not yet possible unless she could also unbar the place which captured her.
“I have no doubt you are right,” her mind answered. “If we cannot open the door, it is best to let others open it for us. If there be a way to open it, we can see it in the morning. You see so badly at night that we should find it a great disadvantage. But I have really little fear of the Killers.
“If my Leader could release herself now, they would see her as she ran toward us. There would be less than nothing gained if she entered, for there would be no-one left outside who could open later, if a chance should favour us. Let us think of other things while the night passes. Are there any in your own land who could be as base as those who wait their end in the killing-sheds?”
I answered frankly, “I think there are, though it is difficult to explain, without making them appear even worse than they may really be. It is in our natures to act independently of one another. Each has his own store of food, and of the things his life requires. There are often those who depend upon him, and for whom he cares more than for his own life. If all the wealth we have were divided equally, even if we would then work equally to maintain it, we should become restless and dissatisfied. Adventure, risk, and chance, are essential to our contentment.
“Then, we grow old and die very quickly, and it is our nature that we can learn little except by our own experience, so that it is always a world of children.
“Living the life we do, we feel that we cannot dwell together at all, unless we can trust each other not to take the things which are ours. We could not keep any social order without judges who could punish those who transgress it. These judges, even though they might be merciful and forgiving in their private life, may feel that they have no right to be so when complaint is made by another.”
She answered, “It seems to me that I have sight of a very terrible world, which you could easily alter if you would, but you have not really answered my question. In the case of which I told you, it appears to me that the real wrongs are two. First, that they had such laws that one of their kind could be short of food, and debarred from the means by which she might obtain it. Second, that those who had it should have refused to share. The first seems to me to condemn the whole race which endures such conditions, for themselves or their neighbours. The second condemns alike the two who refused, and the judges who failed to see that the real wrong was there, and not in the theft which followed. But I cannot think quickly of these things. They are too strange, and too far below the lives of any of the creatures that the ocean holds.”
I replied again, still trying to be fair to all, though my own thought was hers, and with a more vivid bitterness, having been in actual contact with the life from which she revolted.
“I agree with all that you think, but there is, with us, another trouble, which you could hardly imagine. I do not know how the food which you say you take, in your own way, once in every year, may be obtained, nor with what effort, but I suppose that there is plenty for all, and it has become evident to me from what you have told me of the lives you lead, that you have abundant freedom and leisure, and that whatever communal duties each individual may have, they are not very onerous. Our conditions are very different. Life is maintained by the constant toil of the majority of our race—a toil often burdened by very adverse conditions, and numerous perils to health or life. Even so, there may be times when food fails, and some must go short.
“You will see that it would be unfair if some, avoiding this toil, should take by trickery or theft that which is won by the exertions of others.”
“It seems to me,” she replied, “that to condone one baseness you suggest another, which is even more despicable. It seems to me, also, that you may require many to judge wrong, because you have few who can lead rightly.
“I think that there are two ways of life which are good. There is the higher way, which is ours, in which all are united; and there is the lower way, of the shark or the shell-fish, of freedom and violence, which only greater violence can destroy, and which nothing can bring into slavery. But the vision which you give me is of a state which is lower than either of these, of blind servitudes and oppressions, to which you yield without willingness.
“The more you tell me, the more easily do I understand the sudden violences and crafts of your mind, and the disorders through which you think. But has there been none who has pointed out to you either the road of freedom, or the road of concord? Are you content with a social state as uncontrolled as the bodies in which you live so briefly? Have you no law-makers whom you can reverence, and whom you can obey with serenity?”
I answered, “In the country in which I live, we have invented a very curious state, in which we believe that we ourselves make all laws, for ourselves or each other. When I consider it, I know that it is not true, but it is a fact of many consequences that we believe it to be so.
“You must allow for the fact that if, in any part of our world, there should arise a trusted ruler—and there have been such, who have been followed gladly by its best men, and who have made such laws that their race has prospered and increased—he will probably have lived most of his life before he gain his position, and his body will quickly decay, and there will be none to succeed him.
“In my own land we had, at one time, a custom that the son of a ruler should be a ruler after him, whether he were fit or not. Some of them did good, or at least attempted to do so. Few of them did great harm. They took more than their share of the good things of the land, and they gave to their friends. They sometimes made war when their people would have been content to remain at peace. They sometimes—but less often—prevented war, when their people desired it.
“They interfered little with the personal freedom of their subjects, so long as their own pleasures were gratified. For their own sakes they liked to be popular. Few laws were made, and if such as there were should be considered oppressive, the people would unite to insist that they should be reduced or altered. When the king and his subjects differed, it was always that they wanted less law, and there was confusion, and sometimes violence, till they succeeded in their desire.
“They objected particularly to having their goods or money taken by taxation, and their kings did not dare to tax them heavily. To enforce many laws requires the employment of many men, and great expenditure of treasure, from which a king gets no benefit. Had the king made many laws, he would have had no money to administer them, even had he wished to do so.
“But even so, men were not satisfied. There is an old tale with us of a colony of frogs in a river, which had no king, and thinking that it would increase their importance to have one, they petitioned their Creator, and he, being kindly, showed them a dead log in the stream, and told them that their king was there. But when they found that this king was inactive, they complained again, and he, being angered at their folly, gave them a stork, who chased and ate them as often as hunger moved him. The tale says that they were no more pleased than before, but that they complained in vain, for their Creator would hear them no further. We, having tried kings of both qualities, the predatory and the inactive, and being no more satisfied than the frogs, have devised an imagination which has conquered those who conceived it. Even though we recognise the incubus which is upon us, and that it is of our own devising, we cannot hereby perceive any way to remove it.
“The fact is this. Our ancestors of a previous century, believing that they had discovered a way to freedom, devised a plan by which the people of each locality should choose one of their number, and these men, meeting together, should have power to frame laws, and to make impositions upon them. Every few years a new choice should be made, so that they could replace any with whose actions they were dissatisfied.
“This procedure has now been followed for many years, with a variety of unforeseen consequences, all of which I could not explain without a previous understanding of the whole social order—or disorder—in which it is rooted.
“But one sequel is simple. These men, being appointed to make laws, have proceeded to do so for many years with uninterrupted diligence, and there is no power to stop them.
“How can they be stopped, but by a law of their own making? And that is the last law which they would consider.
“The result is that we are oppressed by a weight of laws, to which we render a partial and bewildered obedience, aware that there are many of which we have not even heard; and every year hundreds of thousands of us, most of whom have no intention of law-breaking—are indeed nervously anxious to avoid it—are insulted and plundered by the innumerable officials through whom these laws are administered, and whom we toil to support for our own undoing.”
I went on to show her pictures of the life from which I came, so that she should realise the existence which was possible under such conditions, where personal freedom had disappeared beyond anything which our planet had previously known, or is ever likely to experience again; where you might not even die in peace, except under the penalty that your body would afterwards be seized and cut open, to ascertain how you had contrived to do it.
Horror, pity, curiosity, disgust, contempt, and wonder chased themselves across the surface of my companion’s mind as the nature of this life became visualised before her. With these there was a satisfaction that I had escaped, by whatever channel, from conditions of such barbarity, and a certain admiration or respect for myself, such as we may feel for one whom we recognise to have lived through some unusual tragedy, beyond the common experience of mankind. Then there was a desire to see for herself the strange and alien life which I showed her, and I knew that, were it not an impossibility for her to enter a past to which she did not belong, she would gladly have adventured it with me. I thought, with curiosity, of how she would encounter such an existence, could I have translated her to a mortal body and the conditions of life with which I was myself familiar, and I had a moment’s doubt of one who, I felt, had experienced only the pleasures of existence without its pain, but my final thought was that the serenity of her mind was a spiritual quality too fundamental for any servitude to subdue it.
She asked me whether our world had always lacked a leader to propose any rule of life other than this state which lacked either individual freedom or a rational mutuality, and I replied that there had been an event of two millenniums earlier than my own life, which was commonly regarded as a revelation from Heaven. Its Exponent had announced a series of paradoxical aphorisms for the conduct of life, which were of an unforgettable kind, and were still highly respected. If they were obeyed, life would be fundamentally different, but the common opinion was that they were quite impracticable. Each of these aphorisms prescribed a line of conduct and foretold its result. It might seem difficult to honour the Teacher, and reject His wisdom so absolutely. But it was contrived very simply. The consequences which had been ascribed to the course of life which He taught were allocated to a vague existence which was to follow at a distant time, and in another sphere. Meanwhile, if they were obeyed at all, it was regarded as an act of self-sacrifice, no one supposing for a moment that the results which He foretold would actually follow. I admitted that I knew of no authenticated instance of anyone obeying these precepts with results unsatisfactory to himself or others.
As the long night passed I went on, in response to a curiosity which seemed insatiable in its desire of exploration, to describe many phases of the social and economic chaos which we call civilisation, often illuminating my own mind as I did so.
I noticed that she was particularly impressed by the precarious tenure on which we hold the houses which our defective bodies require, and the uncertainty of many of us in obtaining a regular and sufficient supply of the very necessities of life itself and the consequent bitterness with which we regard a stranger who lays hands on anything to which we consider we have a prior claim.
Realising this, she began to understand how those among us of the baser sort, who have more than sufficient for their own comfort, may yet persecute any who attempt to share it, without incurring the contempt or punishment of their fellows.
Joined to this bitter resentment at any private theft, I had to exhibit the docility with which we allow ourselves to be robbed by legal process, and the immunity and respect enjoyed by those who are the instruments and beneficiaries of these extortions; and, as I showed it, I had to realise the fantastic inequity with which these impositions are levied, as, for instance, that a man who prefers salt shall pay less than one who eats sugar, or that one who keeps a dog shall pay more than one who keeps a pet of another species, or—an idea almost devilish in its lunacy—that a man shall pay more heavily because he provides a larger home, with the increase of young children who are dependent upon him.
I reverted to the explanation that, while no king could have imposed this burden of taxation upon us, we were bewildered by the belief that it was of our own doing, and that this conviction acted as a paralysis....
The shaft struck the wall sharply, and rebounded to the floor beside us.