THE LONG BLACK ROAD TO ADLAZ
In illimitable darkness a spark glowed and lived, and the soul of
Polaris Janess awoke and once more knew it was a soul. The silence
of oblivion was broken by a roaring as of a thousand mighty rivers
torrenting on their courses far underground. One by one the man endured
the tortures that those must endure who come back from the claim
of the sea. Slowly and with exquisite agony came the consciousness
that his body still lived--an agony so keen that he fain would have
wrenched himself free of the flesh and departed it. Fire, liquid and
intolerable, raced through his every vein and artery. His head, no
longer tenanted by a brain, it seemed, was a vast and empty cavern,
through which wild winds moaned.
An age it was in seeming that the soul fought its way through travail,
back to command of the faculties it had quitted, until it had regained
the mastery of its two provinces, the brain and the body. The fiery
rivers were quenched. The winds ceased their roaring. With a groan and
a shudder the son of the snows once more took up the burden of living.
Weak and dizzy and deathly sick, he opened his eyes.
He lay on a soft bed of furs in a small and swaying room. Almost at
his elbow he heard the splash of waves against metal walls. Above him,
an expression of sympathy and concern on his ruddy face, bent the
red-haired stranger.
When he saw the eyes of Polaris quiver open, the man smiled, a rare and
winning smile.
"Now, by the four rivers," he said, "I am glad to see you return to the
living. So long did you tarry in the beyond that I thought that I had
lost you."
For a moment Polaris gazed into that rubicund countenance in
bewilderment, but for a moment only. With the floods of life came
memory. He tried to spring to his feet, but the struggle in the water
and the nausea of his returning vitality had sapped the strength from
him. He fell weakly back. The look he bent upon the stranger was
poignant with its question.
"Rose--the Rose-maid? Where is she?" he gasped, wresting the words out
painfully.
With a graceful gesture, the stranger drew to one side and pointed
across the room.
"Your lady? She is there," he said.
On the other side of the room, only a few feet away, was another couch,
similar to the one on which Polaris had found himself. Rose Emer lay
upon it. The oilskins she had worn were in a crumpled heap upon the
floor. Her gown, sodden with sea water, clung to her limbs. A careful
hand had partly covered her with the folds of a robe of soft, dark
furs. The coils of her long, chestnut hair, disheveled and damp, had
fallen about her face and neck. Her long lashes lay upon her cheeks.
Her lips were slightly parted. One arm hung down from the edge of the
couch, its hand relaxed and open, the fingers limp.
Long and earnestly Polaris looked at her. He could see only her
profile. Her face was very white and still, outlined there against
the furs. The light went out of his tawny eyes, and he set his teeth
and turned his face to the wall. The sob that arose in his throat
was wrung from the depths of a spirit sorely stricken. Now death were
welcome indeed.
"Grieve not so," the stranger said hastily. "She is not dead, and I
am a fool to bring such fright upon you. She did but swoon when you
yourself were overlong in returning to the realm of the living. Here."
He passed an arm under the shoulders of Polaris, and assisted him to
rise and cross to the other couch.
Swaying like a drunken man, the son of the snows bent and touched the
wrist of the girl with his fingers. When he felt the tides of the
life-blood leaping through the warm flesh, a joy welled up within him
that was akin to pain in its throbbing. Come what might, his lady
lived, and once again there was light in his world. He laid his cheek
against hers and he was near to tears in his weakness.
Presently he raised his head, and for the first time gave a thought to
his surroundings. The room he was in was shaped like the quarter of a
circle. The couch on which he had lain was along the curved side of the
room, and there the wall was of steel or iron, against which he could
hear the lapping of waters. At each end, where the cabin narrowed to
the points of its arc, were cabinets carved of polished woods. At the
side where the girl lay the wall was of wood, also, and was pierced by
a small door. A number of garments hung from pegs in the paneling. Near
to the door, in a golden sheath, swung a heavy, short-bladed sword.
Overhead was a crisscross of slender wooden beams, and in the midst of
them was set a translucent globe of porcelain or clouded glass, through
which a strong light was shed, light that was almost as clear in its
quality as that of day.
At the sight of those crossed beams, Polaris's memory stirred quickly.
Where had he seen such before? Ah, he had it! It was just such a
lattice-work that had made a raft for the stranger when he had found
him floating in the sea. What was the meaning of it?
The screaming fury of the tempest, with its menace to all that he held
dearest; the terrible moments when the _Minnetonka_ went roaring down
to ruin; the struggle in the sea; the agony of resuscitation; the grim
fear that had choked him when he saw his dear lady lying there so pale
and still--all those transitions had shaken even the strong will and
cool brain of the son of the snows. He shook his head impatiently, as
though the fog through which his mind groped were a physical fact, to
be dismissed so.
Here at his side was the living answer to the questions that now
trooped thick and fast--the man who had promised him life on the
sinking deck of the cruiser and who had made that promise good.
"Where are we, and who and what are you?" Polaris asked him.
The answer was as ready as it was surprising.
"We are under the sea in the captain's cabin of a fademe in the navy
of the great king, Bel-Ar. And I"--he bowed slightly and smiled--"I am
the Captain Oleric the Red, also of the navy of the great king, but at
present without a fademe to command."
* * * * *
So unusually circumstanced from his very birth had been the life of
Polaris Janess that he long before had accepted and made his own the
philosophy which the Prince of Denmark taught to Horatio. Things that
the ordinary man would scoff at and reject as preposterous had been
the incidents of his everyday existence. So now the extraordinary
declaration of him who named himself Oleric the Red did not move him to
any great show of surprise.
Instead, there came to him the sorrowful vision of the good gray
cruiser, sundered and wrecked and going down to the ocean's bed,
bearing with her many a man whom he had been glad to call his
friend--men who twice had risked their lives in the antarctic perils
that others might live. With that picture in his mind came a thought
that drove all the mists from his brain and made it burn with a sense
of outrage and anger.
He snapped himself erect, and with hands clenched and blazing eyes
looked down on Oleric.
"The breaking of the good ship yonder came not from within, but from
without," he said sternly. "That great ray of strange light that
cut her like a knife was some devil's device of these that you call
fademes. Is it not true?"
Over the face of Oleric passed a shadow that made it sad. But his eyes
were steadfast and unflinching.
"It is true," he answered. "I would have prevented it if I could have.
Your ship has gone the way of all others which have come to the coasts
of Maeronica."
"Is it, then, the custom of your 'great king' so to greet strangers who
come to his shores?" asked Polaris.
"Such have been the orders of the king of Maeronica," replied Oleric.
"Many a long century has rolled into the past since any ship, save the
fademes, cast anchor in the harbor of the city of Adlaz. It is the law.
It is so writ upon the sacred column. But it is a bad law."
"An hour ago we had not guessed of the existence even of this land of
Maeronica of yours, with its city of Adlaz and its rule of death in
the sea," said Polaris. "All that we asked was to go our ways in peace
and a safe journey to America. Now, because of the evil law of an evil
land, a great ship's company is food for the fishes. You say well that
it is a bad law.
"And, hark you, Oleric the Red, I count the reckoning between this King
Bel-Ar of yours and me as both long and heavy. I do not know how it
will fall about, or when; but my heart tells me that some time I shall
make settlement of that score."
Rose Emer stirred and moaned, and Polaris turned to her. He knelt again
at the side of her couch and chafed her hands.
Running his fingers through his red hair, Oleric looked down at
Polaris. A strange light shone in the blue eyes of the captain, and
over his face spread a crafty and satisfied smile. He nodded his head
as though a thought had come to him that pleased him much.
"Yourself and the lady here are not the only ones saved from the ship,"
he said at length.
"What? There are others that live?" Polaris asked quickly. "Who, and
where are they?"
"In the opposite cabin of the fademe is the old man Zenas," Oleric
replied, "and with him is the large and fat young man who made all
of the jokes at the table on the ship. And in another fademe is the
captain--Everson--and the two you saved from Sardanes, the giant Minos
and the dark and splendid lady, Memene."
"What know you of Sardanes?" Polaris asked. "And how comes it that you
speak our English speech, now that your tongue is loosened?"
Oleric smiled. "Though my tongue was idle on your ship yonder, my
ears were not," he said, "nor were my eyes, and they gathered me much
information. I know that you, whom they call the son of the snows, have
lived a strange life and looked upon many wonders. But they are as
nothing to the wonders which you are to see presently--and I, Oleric
the Red, shall show them to you." He laughed soundlessly.
"But the language--where learned you the English tongue?" Polaris asked
again. "Surely it is not spoken in this Maeronica, this land whereof no
man has ever heard."
"Many years ago I learned it--from the lips of a slave. He, too, had
been taken from the deck of a ship which was sunk by the fademes," was
the answer of Oleric. He regarded Polaris keenly. Nor was that reply
without its effect.
"Slaves!" Polaris cried. "Is this another of the laws of this land of
yours--to make slaves of strangers?"
"It is the law of the great king," Oleric said. "Few such have been
taken alive, but they have lived as slaves or died on the sands of the
arena to make sport for the people at the great games which are a part
of the Feast of Years."
* * * * *
For a moment, even Rose Emer was forgotten. Polaris looked up at the
Maeronican captain with a blaze in his eyes that boded little of
submission to the laws of Bel-Ar, the king.
When he spoke, it was very quietly. "Law or no law, backs shall break
and spirits set out on their journeys before I shall become slave to
any man."
"But the maid here," interposed Oleric--"would you bring doom upon her
as well as upon yourself? Be not so rash, my brother. 'All things come
to him that waits,' was a saying of that slave from whom I learned your
tongue--O'Connell, he did call his name. I know not if his saying be
true. I know he waited many long years, and death came to him."
Polaris shook his head slowly.
"There is little cheer in these words of yours, Oleric the Red," he
said. "And I do not know why you should call me brother, for whom you
foretell a life of slavery. But these things are bridges to be crossed
when met." He turned back to Rose Emer. "Have you such a thing as wine
on this ship?" he asked. "This swoon is long in passing."
Again the red captain regarded the broad back with satisfaction and
smiled his craftful smile.
He stepped to the end of the cabin, and from the cabinet there fetched
a tall glass flagon, bound with golden filagree-work, and a slender,
twisted goblet. The liquor which he poured from the flagon was
cherry-red, and sent forth a pleasing aroma.
"Here is of the best in Maeronica," he said. "Trust a captain of the
fademes to know it."
Lifting Rose's head on his arm, Polaris held the goblet to her lips
and let the red wine trickle down. As he did so, the door of the cabin
was opened from without. A man thrust his head through and shouted to
Oleric in a strange though not unmusical tongue. The captain answered
him a word or two, and the door was closed again. Polaris saw that the
man wore armor of a pattern similar to that of Oleric, and that, like
the captain's, his face was ruddy. But his hair was black, and he wore
a short, curling beard. While the door was opened, the purr of smoothly
running machinery could be heard, and with it a steady hissing,
bubbling noise, like that of escaping steam.
Rose sat up suddenly and glanced around her with frightened eyes. She
threw her arms around Polaris's neck and clung to him.
"You lay so still," she sobbed, "I thought that you were dead. But you
are alive--alive!"
Oleric bent forward and spoke hurriedly.
"We are nearing the harbor of the city of Adlaz," he said. "I do not
know when I shall have opportunity to talk with you again. But if it be
not soon, wait; and accept with patience, even though it shall try you
sorely, all that shall happen.
"Just now you asked me why I called you 'brother.' You saved me from
the sea. On the ship yonder you and the old man Zenas, and another whom
I grieve that I could not save, tended me when you thought that I was
near to death. And after, when your sailors murmured, and they would
have cast me into the sea, you guarded me from harm. All those things I
know and shall not forget. That is why I call you brother. And back of
all of those things there is still another reason, of which I hope to
tell you soon. I learned from the slave O'Connell that the shake of the
hands between men is a bond of friendship. Will you shake my hand, my
brother?"
Polaris took the proffered hand in a grip that made its owner wince.
"It seems that despite the laws of Bel-Ar, the king, I have found a
friend," he said. "I shall try to be patient, Oleric."
"Hold your hand from anger," enjoined the red captain earnestly, "even
though you be put to serve as a slave in the mines of Bel-Ar. And
instruct your companions that they do likewise. Great days are coming
upon Maeronica, and I promise you faithfully that you shall play a
great part in them--"
He broke his speech suddenly.
Again the door swung open. Somewhere in the depths of the fademe a bell
rang clearly. The noise of the mechanism ceased. The black-bearded man
who had thrust his head into the cabin before, stood in the doorway and
beckoned to Oleric.
"Remember," warned the captain as he passed Polaris. "Patience and that
strong heart of yours shall carry you far before your sun goes down."
He went out and the door closed after him.
"What does he mean, with his talk of slaves and the mines and all those
strange names?" Rose Emer asked wonderingly. "Where are we?"
Polaris told her all that he had learned from the captain. She heard
him with wide eyes.
"_You_--a slave!" she cried. "Ah, no, not that? Is it to be like this
all our lives--to see happiness just ahead of us, but never reach it?
Fate cannot be so cruel. Think what you have endured. And now to be a
slave here in this terrible foreign land!"
Perhaps Fate was listening then--Fate, who can be both cruel and kind,
sordid and splendid, according to her whim. She had played many strange
tricks on this man. But she now decreed that he should never serve the
king Bel-Ar as a slave.
* * * * *
Soon after the departure of Oleric, the door of the cabin was opened
again, and an armored man entered. It was he of the black beard, whom
Polaris rightly guessed to be the captain of the fademe. With him came
three other men, unarmored, who evidently were members of the crew of
the craft.
Sturdy, black-haired fellows these were, dressed alike in loose,
neckless blue tunics of some woven material, with elbow-sleeves,
and belted in at the waist. Beneath the tunics they wore long,
close-fitting nether garments like the hose of the Middle Ages, only
these were both hose and trousers, too. On their feet were shoes of
soft leather, the tops of which came nearly to their knees, and which
were laced with gay-colored cords. Their heads were covered with flat
caps of cloth which resembled somewhat the tam-o'-shanters of the
Scots. Those, too, were dyed in bright colors.
With a motion of his arm the captain indicated to Rose and Polaris that
they were to leave the cabin. The girl still was weak from her swoon,
and tottered when she stood, and her garments were wet and bedraggled.
Polaris wrapped her in the robe of furs with which Oleric had covered
her, and lifted her in his arms. As he did so, one of the sailors spoke
harshly and snatched at the robe. He was clumsy, and his fingers caught
in Rose's unbound hair and pulled it so that she winced.
Polaris set the girl down and in the same motion spun on his heel and
struck the man under the ear.
Well it was for the Maeronican sailor that the son of the snows, quick
as was his anger at the affront to the girl, remembered the counsel of
Oleric. Even as he struck, he remembered, and he opened his hand; else
the stroke, directed by his mighty thews, had ended all things for the
sailor. As it was, the blow partly lifted the man from his feet and
shot him sprawling through the open door to fall heavily outside.
From its peg on the wall the captain caught down the short-bladed sword
and tore it from the sheath. At a word from him, his two remaining men
plucked knives from their belts and closed in.
Prospects of battle cleared the last of the numbness from the limbs of
Polaris. He thrust Rose Emer behind him. He ran his eyes hastily over
the cabin in search of a weapon, but saw none which would serve him. In
another instant he would have sprung barehanded against the Maeronican
steel.
At that juncture a voice cried out, and Oleric the Red stepped over
the fallen sailor and entered the cabin. Whatever may have been the
failings of the red captain, slowness in action was not one of them.
Gripping the two crouching sailors, each by the belt from behind, he
tugged so mightily that their feet flew from under them, and they sat
hard on the cabin floor. With a catlike leap, Oleric reached the side
of the captain of the fademe and struck the sword from his hand. As the
blade clanged on the floor, Oleric set his foot across it. Then, and
not until then, did he seek to learn the trouble's cause.
"What now, comrade," he said to Polaris. "Do you then court death so
soon?"
But when he heard of the sailor's action, he nodded his red head.
"So would I have done," he said shortly. He turned on the other captain
and spoke to him sternly in the Maeronican tongue. Almost choking in
his rage, the commander answered him in sneering tones, and with a
shrug of his shoulders stalked from the cabin. The sailors slunk after
him.
Oleric watched their departing backs with a hard and level stare.
"Daelo grows insolent," he said. "He thinks, because I have had the
misfortune to lose a fademe, that I shall get no pretty welcome from
Bel-Ar. Maybe he is right. Bel-Ar loves not to lose his ships. Ah,
well--" He, too, shrugged his shoulders, and then he smiled.
"And you, my brother--" He shook his finger at Polaris. "Unless you
learn to curb that fine spirit of yours, I need to be no prophet to
foretell what shall befall you. But come; let us leave this place. The
air of it grows foul."
With Rose in his arms, Polaris stepped from the cabin and gazed
curiously about him.
He stood in a long gallery or corridor, some nine feet wide by thirty
in extent. It was lighted brightly by a number of globes similar to
that in the cabin. The flooring was of wood, the ceiling of steel.
Opposite him was the door of another cabin. A few feet along the
corridor ahead of him, toward the prow of the fademe, the floor was
pierced to admit a large post or beam, which thrust up through it and
disappeared through another opening in the ceiling of the gallery.
Around the beam spiraled a slender winding stair of yellow metal.
Oleric led on toward the bow. As he passed the stairway, Janess saw
that it led to a small, towerlike structure above. A glance through the
opening in the floor showed him another gallery, or deck, below, and he
had a glimpse of a mass of mechanism and shafting. It was the engine
room of the fademe into which he looked. Near the prow, the flooring
was cut away again to allow the passage of what seemed to be a pillar
of solid, yellow glass, as large around as the body of a man.
As they passed the second pillar by, Oleric struck it lightly with his
palm.
"There is what brought death to your good ship, my brother," he said.
"It is the secret of the power of the navy of Bel-Ar."
* * * * *
At the end of the corridor was an open door. Beyond it was a small
chamber and another door. The chamber was constructed entirely of
steel. Both of its doors were circular in shape, and they were fitted
with valves and bars which made them resemble the breechblocks of
enormous cannon. From beyond the second door came the sound of the
splashing of waves and the hum of many human voices.
Oleric passed through the chamber. At the outer door he paused and
gave Polaris a hand with his burden. A breeze of salt air fanned their
faces. Through the door Polaris saw an expanse of blue water alight
with shafts of sunshine--for the rain had ceased--and the line of a
rocky wall.
"The harbor of the city of Adlaz," the red captain said.
They stood on a metal deck six feet square on the extreme prow of the
fademe. From the deck a narrow, swaying gangplank reached to the edge
of the quay that was built of massive blocks of masonry, alongside of
which the fademe was moored.
At their right was the tossing blue and white of a harbor large enough
to have given shelter to the ships of all the navies of the world,
could they have come to it. Nearly three miles in width and length it
lay, the whole girt round by the ring of a lofty mountain wall, in
which on the seaward side there was not a notch or a break. Two hundred
feet up from the water's edge the sheer cliffs towered, their faces
smooth and precipitous.
It was more a lake than a harbor that held the navy of Bel-Ar. Later
the Americans learned that its only entrance from the sea was a natural
tunnel many feet below the level of the water, through which the
fademes passed out and in. The harbor was the giant cup or crater of a
volcano, ages quenched.
Along the wharves of stone and anchored in the lake rocked the fademes
of the Maeronican fleet, each one resembling nothing so much as a
monstrous goldfish carrying a glass tower on its back. Gold they were,
indeed--and they shimmered and glittered in the sunlight as only gold
can glitter.
Like immense, flattened globes the fademes were fashioned--globes forty
feet through their lengthened axes, and drawn to points at their stems
and sterns. Where the dorsal fin of a fish projects from its spine,
each fademe bore a small, round deckhouse with ribs of metal and sides
of polished crystal.
Yes; the harbor of Adlaz was very like a vast bowl with many goldfish
(the fleet of fademes must have numbered one hundred and fifty). But
they were far from being the harmless toys of children, these golden
ships of the underseas. Deadly enspine, each fademe bore a small, round
bee sent forth on cruel errands.
On the dancing surface of the lake and in and out among the gleaming
fademes plied a number of small open boats, driven by oarsmen, and
here and there in the anchorage were scattered undersea craft of a make
smaller by half and more slender than the fademes. These were called
marizels.
Back of the quays and the wharves was a line of low buildings of black
and red stone, well constructed, with doors of wood and glass windows.
Except that their architecture was quaint and ran much to carved faces
of men and beasts, interspersed with squat domes and spires, they might
have been the warehouses of some well-to-do port of the old world.
An open space, a number of acres in extent, lay beyond the buildings
and reached to the frowning face of the cliff-wall. The wall itself was
pierced by a broad arch or tunnel wide enough for a squadron of cavalry
to have ridden through it abreast and so high that a galleon's masts
would not have touched its vaulted roof.
Above the center of the arch, and carved in the rock of the cliffside,
was a great round face, many feet across. It was a piece of sculpture
to crook the fingers of a miser; for it was covered with beaten gold,
so that it resembled a rising sun. That semblance was heightened
further by long shafts or rays which extended from the face across the
surface of the rock in all directions. They, too, were of gold. Work of
a master-sculptor, it was, who had guided his chisel in bold, strong
strokes. The features were noble, but the smiling lips were cruel, and
there was cruelty in the golden eyes which looked down on the golden
ships in the harbor.
All these things Polaris saw from the forward deck of the fademe, and
more. The quays and the court were black with people. At one side of
the archway was drawn up a line of horsemen clad in steel armor. In
the midst of the throng in the court a man in a yellow tunic and cap
was cleaving his way through the press toward the wharf on a big black
horse.
As he crossed the swaying plank to the wharf with Rose Emer in his
arms, Polaris heard a great cry of wonder go up from the crowd. In a
moment he learned that it was not the appearance of the strangers that
had caused the outcry. It was the return of Oleric the Red, who had
long been given up as lost. Evidently the red captain was a popular man
in his land. People crowded around him and clapped him on the back and
gave him words of welcome home. Greetings none the less hearty for that
they were tinged with a note of apprehension for his future welfare,
which even Polaris could sense, though he understood no word of it all.
Down from his horse sprang the man in the yellow tunic and enfolded
Oleric in a mighty embrace. "Ah, old red bear, it is good for the eyes
to see you once again. We had thought the fishes had you. But"--and he
lowered his voice--"you will have to think of a pretty tale to tell to
Bel-Ar. He raves at the loss of a fademe."
"That he does," answered Oleric, "but I am good at the telling of
tales, as you know. Besides, I have with me a matter of a small sack,
which was not lost with the fademe, and which shall make the eyes of
his queen to glisten. So mayhap I shall find forgiveness."
The other ran his eye over Polaris and Rose. "What, more slaves?" he
asked. "Orlas already has brought in three, and one of them a giant."
"Yes, Brunar, more slaves." Oleric's face grew sober. "Poor souls. My
heart is heavy for them, for they did save my life out yonder on the
sea, and treat me kindly."
"Here, old bear, take you my horse and ride on to Adlaz," said Brunar.
"I have business here. I will come on anon through the canal in a
marizel. And, if the hand of Bel-Ar lie not too heavy upon you, there
will be a rare night to-night, a rare night; eh, old bear?" Laughing,
he tossed the reins to Oleric and disappeared in the crowd.
From the stern of the fademe they had quitted sounded a high-pitched
voice in notes of vituperation. Oleric looked back. The captain Daelo
stood on the rear deck of his vessel. When he saw Oleric turn, he shook
his clenched fist at the red captain. With a laugh, Oleric flung back a
remark of such import that it made Daelo dance upon his deck with rage.
"Now there's a fool," grumbled Oleric, "who may be troublesome. I have
the best of him this time, though. Back to sea patrol he goes. And
there is a maid in Adlaz town--a sweet and comely maid, for love of
whom he's well-nigh witless. I just did tell him that I'd comfort her
in his absence." The captain tossed his head and laughed his soundless
laugh.
Bidding a lad hold his horse, Oleric led Polaris and Rose into one
of the buildings near the end of the wharf. There, under a guard of
sailors, they found old Zenas, the two Sardanians, Everson, and Brooks.
Lacking an interpreter, such as Oleric, these others were in sore
bewilderment. The stunning blow of the loss of the _Minnetonka_ had
cast them in a depth of gloom, which the appearance of Polaris and
Rose Emer and the few explanations they were able to give did little
to lighten. Everson, especially, was like a man distraught. Even the
scientific zeal of Zenas Wright for once was quenched, and he met the
marvels about him with a listless eye.
* * * * *
Under orders from Oleric, men fetched from stables near the quays a
long, low car, to which two span of horses were attached, and the
Americans were bidden to take their places in it. Wild and reckless
drivers these Maeronicans were. Two of them climbed into the car,
turned their horses' heads toward the great archway and whipped them
into a gallop. With a yell, the crowd parted. The hoofs of the horses
rang on the stones of the paved courtyard. As they passed from the
court into the tunnel, the line of steel horsemen came clattering after
them. Oleric rode at the side of the car.
At intervals in the walls of the tunnel were set translucent globes
like those on the fademe, which shed a strong white light along the
way. The flooring was paved and smooth. For perhaps five minutes the
cavalcade thundered through the passage in the rock, and then it
emerged again into the light of day.
Ahead stretched a long, wide roadway, paved from side to side with
blocks of black stone, fast embedded in a cement of the same hue.
At both sides of the road were low walls, and beyond the walls were
handsome mansions and grounds, where fair trees tossed their greenery
and bright flowers bloomed amid a wealth of shrubbery. From the
splendid and fragrant lawns men and women looked forth as the car
whirled past, and children left their play to run to the walls and
stare wide-eyed at the strangers.
Most of the men were garbed as had been those of the fademe's crew and
also the crowd at the harbor, in loose, belted tunics and hose, but
finer in texture and more showy in coloring than those of the commoner
sort.
Some of the old men wore flowing gowns. The women and children were
clad in short kirtles. Everywhere was a riot of color. The garments
of the people were gay with many tints and hues. The grounds were
flecked with flowers. The dwellings, all of which were built of stone,
made their brave show of colors, too. The quarries from which the
masonry was cut yielded white and black and red stone, and in their
construction work the builders had varied them pleasingly.
From the tunnel's mouth at the base of the ancient hill, the long,
black road sloped up gradually. Far ahead loomed the walls and domes
of a great city. Oleric rose in his stirrups and pointed to where they
were outlined against the sky.
"Yonder lies Adlaz, chief city of the Children of Ad," he cried.
Midway in their course to the city, the shouting drivers pulled their
horses suddenly to one side of the road, and the riders of the escort
scattered to right and left to leave a clear passage. From far up the
wonderful street sounded the clash and clatter of pounding hoofs in
desperate haste.
But no horse it was that galloped so madly from Adlaz town to the sea,
but a giant, bronze-coated bull. On he came, head down and tail aloft,
his hoofs striking fire from the smooth, hard rock of the roadway. At
intervals he gave voice to a deep-throated bellow.
He was still three hundred yards from the car when Rose Emer screamed
out in horror. "Ah, the child! Save the child!" she cried.
From one of the mansions farther up the street, a child had strayed,
a baby girl, a fragile, black-haired little thing, not more than five
years old. Shrieking with laughter, she had eluded her mother and run
out through the gateway to the center of the road. Half-way across the
pavement, she slipped and fell. Down the street on thundering hoofs
came the great bronze death.
Upsetting one of the drivers in his haste, Polaris leaped down over
the wheel of the car. Scarcely had his feet touched the roadway, when
Minos, the Sardanian, was down behind him. Snatching a short spear from
the hand of one of the steel riders, the son of the snows bounded up
the street to meet the bull, going at a speed which few living things
could have equaled. Over his shoulder he called to Minos:
"Care for the child, Minos; leave the beast to me."
Just beyond where the baby girl lay, he met the furious mass of
charging flesh. The little red eyes of the oncoming monster saw the man
in its path, and for an instant the bull seemed to halt in its stride,
and its hoofs slid on the smooth pavement. Then it lowered its head
still farther and charged on with a roar.
From the tail of his eye, Janess saw the Sardanian snatch the baby from
the perilous path and leap to one side. Behind them the red captain,
shouting and cursing, alone of all the troop of riders strove to urge
his affrighted horse forward.
"Hold! Hold!" he shouted in English. "Let the beast go!"
* * * * *
Even had he heard, Polaris would have been little minded to let the
bull go free. It was plain that the animal was mad. A bloody froth
dripped from its jaws as it ran. Behind the son of the snows, right
where the bull was headed, were his friends, and among them one who
meant more to him than all of the rest of the world.
Directly in the path of the lowered horns, that were coming on with
the power of a mighty battering-ram, Polaris stood. Then he sprang
sidewise, turning as he leaped. So narrowly did he time the onset that
the shoulder of the bull grazed his knee. As the huge body passed him,
the man drove the short spear home behind its shoulder, guiding the
steel with the strength of arm and the keenness of eye that had helped
him to survive through the long years when combat with the beasts of
the wild was a part almost of his daily existence.
The stroke was true. So deeply did the steel spear bite, that its shaft
was wrenched from the hands of Polaris, and he was pitched on his side
on the pavement.
Unhurt, the man was up in an instant, but his work was done. That bull
would charge no more. He lay dead at the side of the roadway, his
tongue thrust out, his eyes glazing, and his life-blood making a pool
on the stones. The Maeronican spear was set fast in his heart.
Hardly was Polaris on his feet again when the armored horsemen rode
down on him with lifted spears, cursing him in their own tongue. Oleric
had conquered his horse, and he now interposed to prevent another
struggle which would have been all too one-sided. For, weaponless as
they were, the three other American men clambered down and ran to the
aid of Polaris.
Minos, who had returned the child to her mother, who knelt half
fainting in her gateway, was the first to reach his side. Though he
bore no weapon, the giant Sardanian squared his mighty figure and made
ready to withstand the onset of horse and steel.
Polaris leaped to the side of the fallen bull and tore the spear from
its body. Then he turned on the horsemen. He could not guess the cause
of their sudden anger, but he, too, was ready.
Before blows could be struck, Oleric thrust his horse into the
open space between the friends and the Maeronican riders. By dint
of persuasion, interlarded with not a few threats, he induced his
followers to forego their hostile intentions.
"You fools!" he shouted. "Would you cheat Bel-Ar of the terrible
vengeance he is sure to take, and have a part of it fall back on you
for balking him?"
When he had quieted his men, the captain turned gloomily to Polaris.
"My brother, your doom is sealed, indeed," he said. "This is one of the
sacred bulls from the temple of Shamar, the great sun, that you have
slain. When one of these goes mad, as did this one, no man in the land
does aught to stay it. That is the law. From its horns to its hoofs,
every hair of it is sacred. Bel-Ar may forgive me the loss of a fademe,
though it will be a great vexation to him; but the death of one of
these sacred bulls of Shamar he will not forgive any man. Sooner might
you expect mercy if you declared yourself a follower of the Goddess
Glorian of Ruthar. In this matter I cannot hope to persuade him. By
the bones of the ten thousand kings, I am sorry that this thing has
happened!"
But later, as they rode on toward the city of Adlaz, the red captain
seemed to be far from rueful. He rode behind the car, and, when he
thought none was observing him, he smiled to himself, as though the
course events were taking pleased him very well indeed.