The Arabs made their way up the narrow canyon toward the summit of the
pass that led into the valley of diamonds. From above, fierce, cruel
eyes looked down. Ab el-Ghrennem gloated exultantly. He had visions of
the rich treasure that was soon to give him wealth beyond his previous
wildest dreams of avarice. Atewy rode close to Naomi Madison to prevent
her from escaping.
At last they came to a precipitous wall that no horse could scale. The
perpendicular sides of the rocky canyon had drawn close together.
"The horses can go no farther," announced Ab el-Ghrennem. "Eyad, thou
shalt remain with them. The rest of us will continue on foot."
"And the girl?" asked Atewy.
"Bring her with us, lest she escape Eyad while he is guarding the
horses," replied the sheykh. "I would not lose her."
They scrambled up the rocky escarpment, dragging Naomi Madison with
them, to find more level ground above. The rocky barrier had not been
high, but sufficient to bar the progress of a horse.
Sitting in his saddle, Eyad could see above it and watch his fellows
continuing on up the canyon, which was now broader with more sloping
walls upon which timber grew as it did upon the summit.
They had proceeded but a short distance when Eyad saw a black, shaggy,
man-like figure emerge from a bamboo thicket above and behind the
sheykh's party. Then another and another followed the first. They
carried clubs or axes with long handles.
Eyad shouted a warning to his comrades. It brought them to a sudden
halt, but it also brought a swarm of the hairy creatures pouring down
the canyon sides upon them.
Roaring and snarling, the beasts closed in upon the men. The matchlocks
of the Arabs roared, filling the canyon with thundering reverberations,
adding to the bedlam.
A few of the gorillas were hit. Some fell; but the others, goaded to
frightful rage by their wounds, charged to close quarters. They tore
the weapons from the hands of the Arabs and cast them aside. Seizing
the men in their powerful hands, they sank great fangs into the throats
of their adversaries. Others wielded club or battle axe.
Screaming and cursing, the Arabs sought now only to escape. Eyad was
filled with terror as he saw the bloody havoc being wrought upon his
fellows. He saw a great bull gather the girl into his arms and start
up the slope of the canyon wall toward the wooded summit. He saw two
mighty bulls descending the canyon toward him. Then Eyad wheeled and
put spurs to his horse. Clattering down the canyon, he heard the sounds
of conflict growing dimmer and dimmer until at last he could hear them
no longer.
And as Eyad disappeared in the lower reaches of the canyon, Buckingham
carried Naomi Madison into the forest above the strange city of the
gorilla king.
Buckingham was mystified. He thought that this hairless she was the
same creature he had captured many days before below the great falls
that he knew as Victoria Falls. Yet only this very morning he had seen
her taken by Wolsey to the castle of God.
He paused beyond the summit at a point where the city of the gorillas
could be seen below them. He was in a quandary. He very much wanted
this she for himself, but then both God and the king wanted her. He
stood scratching his head as he sought to evolve a plan whereby he
might possess her without incurring the wrath of two such powerful
personages.
Naomi, hanging in the crook of his arm, was frozen with horror. The
Arabs had seemed bad enough, but this horrid brute! She wondered when
he would kill her and how.
Presently he stood her on her feet and looked at her. "How did you
escape from God?" he demanded.
Naomi Madison gasped in astonishment, and her eyes went wide. A great
fear crept over her, a fear greater than the physical terror that the
brute itself aroused--she feared that she was losing her reason. She
stood with wild, staring eyes gazing at the beast. Then, suddenly, she
burst into wild laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" growled Buckingham.
"At you," she cried. "You think you can fool me, but you can't. I
know that I am just dreaming. In a moment I'll be awake, and I'll see
the sun coming in my bedroom window. I'll see the orange tree and the
loquat in my patio. I'll see Hollywood stretching below me with its red
roofs and its green trees."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Buckingham. "You are
not asleep. You are awake. Look down there, and you will see London and
the Thames."
Naomi looked where he indicated. She saw a strange city on the banks
of a small river. She pinched herself; and it hurt, but she did not
awake. Slowly she realized that she was not dreaming, that the terrible
unrealities she had passed through were real.
"Who are you? What are you?" she asked.
"Answer my question," commanded Buckingham. "How did you escape from
God?"
"I don't know what you mean. The Arabs captured me. I escaped from them
once, but they got me again."
"Was that before I captured you several days ago?"
"I never saw you before."
Buckingham scratched his head again. "Are there two of you?" he
demanded. "I certainly caught you or another just like you at the falls
over a week ago."
Suddenly Naomi thought that she comprehended. "You caught a girl like
me?" she demanded.
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
"If you are not she, she is with God in his castle--down there." He
leaned out over the edge of the cliff and pointed to a stone castle on
a ledge far below. He turned toward her as a new idea took form in his
mind. "If you are not she," he said, "then God has the other one--and I
can have you!"
"No! No!" cried the girl. "Let me go! Let me go back to my people."
Buckingham seized her and tucked her under one of his huge arms.
"Neither God nor Henry the Eighth shall ever see you," he growled.
"I'll take you away where they can't find you--they shan't rob me of
you as they robbed me of the other. I'll take you to a place I know
where there is food and water. I'll build a shelter among the trees.
We'll be safe there from both God and the king."
Naomi struggled and struck at him; but he paid no attention to her, as
he swung off to the south toward the lower end of the valley.