THE MAN OF THE HOUR
Jason went to Bithur. Naia remained behind. In the week before the
celebration of their former betrothal they had so planned. Now, with
the red and silver seal of Azil once more glowing in her girdle, Naia
did not object. She was a woman. Croft knew she suffered. It was in
her eyes, the touch of her hand. But--as he had seen her prove once
before--she was a Tamarizian first.
In the night Jadgor's messenger arrived, the assembly of Aphur was
called together. To it the Bithurian explained. Faces darkened and eyes
flashed as the startled statesmen learned that once more the integrity
of the nation was threatened. But, as a man, in firm determination they
empowered Robur and Croft to respond to Jadgor's plea, and accepted the
challenge to war.
At daylight, with the airplane he had flown from the first and a supply
of grenades and fuel, together with the additional armored motors
aboard a swift galley, Jason left for Bithur and the battle-front,
taking Jadgor's messenger along. With him also he took a supply of dry
cells to insure the better performance of the motors already on the
ground.
To Naia and Robur and the trained captains he left all the rest--the
assembling of troops, the lading of galleys with all sorts of supplies,
the forwarding of other completed airplanes with the men he started to
train in their use, whose training Naia of Aphur declared she would
complete.
Only at the last did he hold her in his arms and lower his lips to the
low burning flame of her mouth. For Naia of Aphur's lips were pale
as they lifted to his farewell caress, and her slender body quivered
inside his arms and her purple eyes were dark with her soul's distress.
"Yes," she said, clinging to him briefly, "you will come to me again.
Swear it to me by Azil, whose sign you have placed upon me--swear!"
"Yes, by Zitu and Azil, I will return to you, woman of all women,"
Croft declared, as he held her and once more pressed her lips.
Then gripping the hands of Gaya and Robur, he left the palace, and Naia
herself drove him down to the quays.
Seven days later he entered Bithra, the capital of Bithur, and left
it inside an hour, heading east along the Bith between banks where a
tropic vegetation came down to the water's edge, and the mighty flood
of waters swept in a turgid current between banks of trees.
Morning brought him close to Atla, as the pilot taken on at Bithra
declared. Also it brought attack of a sort. From the banks as they
advanced the galley was suddenly greeted by a flight of slithering
shafts. Most of them, thanks to the range, fell into the water, but
one or two reached the deck. Croft lined a company of riflemen he had
hastily mobilized and brought with him on either side of the galley
replied with a crashing volley as the galley advanced. So after that,
meeting flights of arrows with bullets, he progressed, reaching a bend
from which the gates in the city wall spanned the river's flood and
flinging the flag of Aphur into view before the sentries on the walls.
The gates swung open. The galley ran through. The gates were closed
again. The galley tied to a quay below the brown palace Croft had
visited in his astral presence; he marched off with his men. A
procession was debouching from the palace gate. It came toward him
quickly. He recognized Jadgor and Medai in the van. He halted his
company and waited. The others came on. Five paces before him they
halted.
"Hai! Mouthpiece of Zitu," Jadgor spoke in greeting. "Thy coming is
welcome. What word from Aphur and my son?"
"Aphur sends men and weapons to Bithur," Jason responded. "As for
Robur, son of Jadgor, he remains in Himyra to speed the departure for
Bithur of all that may be required."
"It is well," said Jadgor. "Return with us to the palace where all
things may be explained. Medai of Bithur greets you in Bithur's name."
Medai bowed deeply. The guards behind him and Jadgor turned. Followed
by Croft's company they retraced their steps until the palace was
gained.
* * * * *
And there in the room, Croft, Medai and Jadgor sat down. The latter
eyed his former adviser and friend. "You are looking wondrous well," he
said.
"Yes," Croft nodded. "In all things have my efforts by success been
crowned."
"In all things?" Jadgor gave him a piercing glance.
"Yes," Croft again inclined his head. "Thanks largely to Robur,
Jadgor's son. But more of that later, Jadgor. Inform me how matters
stand."
Jadgor shrugged. "It would appear to go not so well with the things
in my hands as with your plans. From the first was the extent of this
matter with Mazzer misjudged; and in addition there is a fault in these
motors of yours, when not controlled by the builder's mind. Wherefore
they failed when most needed at times, and were by sheer force of
numbers overborne. As a result the blue flood of Mazzer laps even now
against Atla's walls on all sides."
"Yet breaks against them," said Jason.
"Aye as yet," Jadgor replied.
"And shall break utterly," Croft went on. "Of this defect in the motors
already I had learned, in the same way in which I have learned other
things in the past, as Jadgor knows. Wherefore his messenger came not
to Himyra as a surprise, and for seven suns before his coming, Robur,
Jadgor's son and I prepared." He broke off and watched the Aphurian
closely.
But Jadgor merely nodded as he responded: "Say on."
"Among those things which have been completed since my return to
Himyra," Croft resumed, "is one which flies in the air. Riding upon it
a man may cast down such bombs as were used at the taking of Niera in
the Zollarian war."
And now Jadgor started and narrowed his eyes, and Medai half rising
from his seat exclaimed: "Zitu! Is this the truth?"
"Yes," said Croft. "One came with me aboard the galley. Between decks
are the bombs. Today shall it be set up and tomorrow shall these blue
men meet with a surprise. Also have I brought devices to make the
performance of the motors more assured. From the ground and from the
air shall we smite the Mazzerians at once."
"Hai!" Medai roared. "Jadgor--to fly above them and rain death on their
heads. Never was such a thing heard of. You believe?"
"Aye." Jadgor of Tamarizia rose. "Zitu's Mouthpiece is a man who speaks
not in idle fashion, O Medai. He speaks true words. One does well to
give credence to his speaking." His hand snapped back and drew his
short sword from its scabbard. He presented it hilt forward. "Man whom
Zitu has sent to Tamarizia's strengthening, to thee I yield."
"No." Croft waved the sword aside. He looked into Jadgor's face and
found it working. "Mouthpiece of Zitu have I been called, in that at
times I have been given the power to direct or to advise. In Jadgor's
heart and mine must Tamarizia find first place always. Let Jadgor wear
the sword."
And suddenly Jadgor's lips set together. He sent the blade back into
the sheath with a rasping clash. "You and I together for Tamarizia
then," he said with abrupt decision, and thrust out his palm. "Accept
Jadgor's hand at least."
The two men gripped and the Aphurian resumed: "Speak, Mouthpiece of
Zitu, what do you advise?"
"What men have you at your disposal?"
Jadgor and Medai explained, and Croft decided upon a tour of the walls.
The trio set forth. And as they went Jadgor explained further that
three times within the past ten days had the Mazzerians attacked them.
Indeed, Croft gained evidence of that when the top of the wall was
reached. It came to him first as an almost insufferable stench. Jadgor
noted the twitching of his nostrils and burst into a savage exultation.
"Aye, by Zitu! they stink to the skies, these dead litter of an unclean
birth. The trenches about Atla's defenses are filled with their
corpses. They lie in heaps. They carpet the ground with a blue carpet,
even more foul in death than in their life. By the thousands have we
slain them, yet by the tens of thousands have their following spawn
arrived. Their souls have we hurled to Zitemku and their bodies to
the ditch." He swept his arm toward the outer parapet in a wide arc.
"Behold!"
* * * * *
Croft looked out of an embrasure and down. An arrow rattled against
the stones beside him, and he drew back. But the one glance had been
enough. This was grim reality he faced. In heaps and rows the rotting
bodies of uncounted dead lay jumbled in dissolution beyond Atla's
walls. He began to think it would be no mean undertaking to defeat the
men of an army who fought like that.
"Back!" he said. "Back to my galley, Jadgor! Let us put together the
flying device I have brought. Tomorrow I swear we shall give them new
death from the skies."
And for the rest of that day Croft sweated and worked, assembling the
airplane on Atla's broadest street, which, like Himyra's, faced the
river--a splendid concourse, above a terrace, offering him a spot
for starting, two hundred feet in width. What of the armored motors
remained he had also driven up, and under their metal bodies he
installed his batteries, wiring them to the ignition system--explaining
to their drivers, how, should the former supply of power be thrown out
of service, this auxiliary source might be employed.
Toward evening, however, he altered his plans. To his mind it appeared
that the more unseen the destruction which came upon them, the greater
on superstitious minds the effect might be. And as he knew even from
his association with the Mazzerian serving-caste in the nation he had
literally adopted, the Mazzerians were superstitious to a degree.
About twilight he loaded the plane with a good supply of bombs.
Ascending from the broad thoroughfare, and returning to it, outlined
as it would be by the fire-urns, which, as at Himyra, marked the banks
of the Bith along the quays, would be no more than child's play. As
a result, he decided to make his first bombing expedition beyond the
walls so soon as night came down, carry what consternation he could
to the Mazzerian forces. This decision he definitely reached after a
conference with Jadgor, who announced that for a great distance before
the walls the Mazzerian camps were nightly marked by the flares of many
fires.
Jadgor, Medai, the major captains of their armies, and many of
the citizens of Atla stood to witness Croft's start. Wearing his
flying-suit which he had brought for the purpose, Jason climbed aboard.
Then at his instruction two frightened-looking soldiers seized the
blades of the propeller and turned the engine round. They let go and
scampered well out of the way as it roared. The plane quivered, moved.
It darted forward along the perfect pavement, tilted and took the air.
In a moment it soared high above the walls. Croft shouted once and then
forgot all else in the sight beneath his eyes.
As far as he could see before him, and to either side, the night was
dotted with fires. In a wide semicircle they blinked and winked and
flared. They outlined the main position of the Mazzerian army. His
heart leaped into his breast, as a rising stench told him he was
passing those rotting bodies stretched out among a mass of broken
weapons at the foot of Atla's walls.
Then the walls were passed, and with the breath of a clean night in his
nostrils, the roar of the engine in his ears, he swept toward the line
of fires.
Far, far out he swung. It was his intention to circuit the back areas
of the Mazzerian line--to come upon them not from in front, but from
the rear--to make his coming appear that of some huge, undreamed
monster of superstitious seeming, to traverse their main body from one
end to the other, dropping bombs which, under the conditions, he felt
could hardly fail of a telling effect.
Far, far out he swam on the new wings he had built for himself--and for
Naia. Naia? He smiled. In Himyra she was perhaps flying by day even as
he was flying now--flying as he had taught her to fly in body and soul;
teaching others to fly for the strength of her nation, as he was flying
for her nation and his, to make it strong and secure. For a moment the
thought gripped him, and he flew on in a sort of waking dream, until
the flare of a hundred leaping fires directly beneath him brought him
back to the matter in hand. He passed the first line of the Mazzerian
bivouac and darted above a wood and came above a great savanna--a
tree-dotted plain, where the camp-fires were flashing again.
Then, and then only, for the first time he reached down and took up a
bomb, and sailing high above that plain where the camp-fires looked
like a myriad of fireflies far beneath him, he let it fall.
A flash, a ruddy, great mushroom of golden, raying light--a splash of
rending destruction in the night. The explosion came up to him long
after he saw it, on the lagging vibrations of sound. Again and again he
hurled a second and third as he swam from left to right.
Faint, far away, oddly detached, he thought he heard a distant
shouting, though it was hard to be sure above the motor's roar. But the
light of other fires showed him the silhouette of many figures running,
of arms uplifted, as though those who swarmed like a hill of angry
ants driven into panic were pointing into the air. Where that cluster
of pointing forms seemed thickest he soared on swift, sure wings and
let go another bomb. It fell beyond his vision. It burst. The blur of
bodies into which it descended was no more.
* * * * *
And now a strange mood seized Croft in its grip. It was unlike anything
he had ever known. It was in reality a sort of air intoxication one
may suppose. But suddenly it was as though he were a superman indeed,
above all things mundane, so far above the puny mortals who crawled on
the ground beneath him, who writhed under the force of his bombs, that
he moved in a world detached from them, or any one, or anything save
himself.
It was as though he rode on destiny's wings rather than upborne by
those of the roaring airplane. He tilted his vanes from no sane
purpose, with nothing to gain. Up, up he shot; up, up, until he
could see the whole night-wrapped region about him, the forest, the
fire-studded camp of Mazzer's army--Atla, a ruddy glow behind her
walls, where shortly he must return.
But not yet--not yet. For a time it was enough to chase this new found
exultation, to swim here in the void between earth and heaven, alone
with the thing he had made, on which he rode; alone with it, with his
spirit, and his thoughts of Naia of Aphur, of the time when these blue
spawn, driven back to their lairs in the hinterland of Palos, he should
return to claim her. It was enough to ride thus the winds of eternity,
as it were, sweeping on and on in the wheel of a mighty circle beneath
the stars.
A sputter, a cough from the motor. Croft came back from his dreams to
the present in a flash. The engine was missing. Apprehension touched
him with a breath-arresting recognition of the fact. And hardly had he
taken it into account when the motor missed again. And having coughed
for the second time, it died.
He was falling--falling! The bombs! Oddly enough he thought of them
rather than of being dashed to death. He reached down and found the
remaining four he had brought. He hurled them over the side of the
fuselage, tossing them wide. Then he began a frantic effort to once
more start the engine--in vain.
Below him four ruddy flashes told him the bombs had struck. In a
rushing whirlwind the air of night was driving past the plane. Doomed
as it seemed, still the will to live, to struggle, to overcome danger
and death itself remained within him. He began an effort to straighten
out the dead plane's course, to catch and use to his own advantage that
wind that was whistling past him now. To catch it, to ride once more
upon it, if only as a kite may sink back to the earth, and so alight,
little damaged rather than broken, splintered by a giddy fall.
So in the end he did straighten out at last and slid swiftly, where
before he had eddied and whirled.
"Zitu!" he breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. "God!" For an instant the
face of Naia swam before his mental vision, so clear, so bright, so
seemingly herself, that it was almost as though he beheld her in the
flesh.
Then--the fire-dotted plain was very close. And the airplane was
shooting down toward it, even though no longer falling, and there was
little chance to choose a course. With a crash the pontoons beneath it
struck through the top of a tree, and the whole machine swerved. In mid
air it staggered, checked, lunged ahead again like a restive living
creature, tipped, slid off sidewise, and crashed down on a crumpling
wing.
Unable to maintain himself in his shaken condition, Croft gave vent to
an inarticulate cry of anguish. The entire bulk of Palos seemed to rise
and hit him, as catapulted from the fuselage by the ruinous landing, he
struck and lay in a dark and senseless huddle on the ground.