FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH
For a moment Stern stared, speechless with amazement, at the
old man, as though to determine whether or not he had gone mad. But
the commotion, the mingled fear and anger of the boat crews convinced
him the danger, though unknown, was very real.
And, flaring into sudden rage at this untimely interruption just in
the very moment of success, he jerked his pistol from its holster, and
stood up in the boat.
"I'll have no butting in here!" he cried in a loud, harsh voice. "Who
the devil is Kamrou, I'd like to know? Go on, _on, to shore!_"
"My son--"
"You order these men to grab those ropes again and go ashore or I warn
you there's going to be a whole big heap of trouble!"
Over the waters drifted another hail, and the strange long boat, under
the urge of vigorous arms, now began to move toward Stern's fleet. At
the same time, mingled cries arose on shore. Stern could see lights
moving back and forth; some confusion was under way there, though
what, he could not imagine.
"Well," he cried, "are you going to order these men to go forward? Or
shall I--with _this?_"
And menacingly he raised the grim and ugly gun.
"Oh my son!" exclaimed the patriarch, his lips twitching, his hands
outstretched--while in the boats a babel of conflicting voices
rose--"O my son, if I have sinned in keeping this from you, now let me
die! I hid it from your knowledge, verily, to save my people--to keep
you with us till this thing should be accomplished! My reckoning was
that Kamrou and his men would stay beyond the Great Vortex, at their
labor, until after--"
"_Kamrou?_" shouted Stern again. "What the deuce do I care about him?
Who _is_ he, anyhow? A Lanskaarn, or--"
The girl seized Allan's hand.
"Oh, listen, listen!" she implored. "I--"
"Did you know about this? And never told me?"
"Allan, he said our work could all be done before they--"
"So you _did_ know, eh?"
"He said I must not tell you. Otherwise--"
"Oh, hang that! See here, Beatrice, what's the matter, anyhow? These
people have all gone crazy, just in a second, the old man and all! If
you know anything about it, for God's sake tell me! I can't stand much
more!
"I've got to get this machine to land before they go entirely nutty
and drop it, and we lose all our work for nothing. What's up? Who's
this Kamrou they're talking about? For Heaven's sake, tell me!"
"He's their chief. Allan--their chief! He's been gone a long time, he
and his men. And--"
"Well, what do we care for _him?_ We're running this village now,
aren't we?"
"Listen. The old man says--"
"He's a hard nut, eh? And won't stand for us--is that it?" He turned
to the patriarch. "This Kamrou you're talking about doesn't want us,
or our new ideas, or anything? Well, see here. There's no use beating
around the bush, now. _This thing's going through, this plan of ours!_
And if Kamrou or anybody else gets in the way of it--_good-by for
him!_"
"You mean war?"
"_War!_ And I know who'll win, at that! And now, father, you get these
men here to work again, or there'll be some sudden deaths round here!"
"Hearken, O my son! Already the feast of welcome to Kamrou is
beginning, around the flame. See now, the boat of his messenger is
close at hand, bidding all those in this party to hasten in, for
homage. Kamrou will not endure divided power. Trust me now and I can
save you yet. For the present, yield to him, or seem to, and--"
"_Yield nothing!_" fairly roared the engineer, angrier than he had
ever been in his whole life. "This is my affair now! Nobody else butts
in on it at all! To shore with these boats, you hear? or I begin
shooting again! And if I do--"
"Allan!" cried the girl.
"Not a word! Only get your gun ready, that's all. We've got to handle
this situation sharp, or it's all off! Come, father," he delivered his
ultimatum to the patriarch; "come, order them ashore!"
The old man, anguished and tremulous, spoke a few words. Answers
arose, here, there. He called something to the standing figure in the
despatch-boat, which slackened stopped, turned and headed for the
distant beach.
With some confusion the oarsmen of the fleet took up their task again.
And now, in a grim silence, more disconcerting even than the previous
uproar, the boats made way toward land.
Ten minutes later--minutes during which the two Americans kept their
revolvers ready for instant action--the aeroplane began to drag on the
bottom. Despite the crowd now gathered on the beach, very near at hand
and ominously silent, Stern would not let the machine lie even here,
in shallow water, where it could easily have been recovered at any
time. Like a bulldog with its jaws set on an object, he clung to his
original plan of landing the Pauillac at once.
And, standing up in the boat with his pistol leveled, he commanded
them, through the mediumship of the patriarch, to shorten the ropes
and paddle in still closer. When the beach was only a few rods distant
he gave orders that all should land, carrying the ropes with them. He
himself was one of the first to wade ashore, with Beatrice.
Ignoring the silent, expectant crowd and the tall figure of Kamrou's
messenger--who now stood, arms crossed, amazed, indignant, almost at
the water's edge--he gave quick commands:
"Now, clear these boats away on both sides! Make a free space,
here--wider--so, that's right. Now, all you men get hold of the
ropes--all of you, here, take hold, you! Ready, now? Give way, then!
Out she comes! Out with her!"
The patriarch, standing in fear and keen anxiety beside him,
transmitted the orders. Truly the old man's plight was hard, torn as
he was between loyalty to the newcomers and terror of the implacable
Kamrou. But Stern had no time to think of aught but the machine and
his work.
For now already the great ungainly wings of the machine were wallowing
up, up, out of the jetty waters; and now the body, now the engine
showed, weed-festooned, smeared with mud and slime, a strange and
awesome apparition in that blue and ghastly torch-flare, as the
toiling men hauled it slowly, foot by foot, up the long slope of the
beach.
Dense silence held the waiting throng; silence and awe, in face of
this incomprehensible, tremendous thing.
Even the messenger spoke not a word. He had lost somewhat of his
assurance, his pride and overbearing haughtiness. Perhaps he had
already heard some tales of these interlopers' terrible weapons.
Stern saw the man's eyes follow the revolver, as he gestured with it;
the high-lights gleaming along the barrel seemed to fascinate the tall
barbarian. But still he drew no step backward. Still in silence, with
crossed arms, he waited, watched and took counsel only with himself.
"Thank God, it's out at last!" exclaimed the engineer, and heaved a
sigh of genuine, heartfelt relief. "See, Beatrice, there s our old
machine again--and except for that broken rudder, this wing, here,
bent, and the rent where the grapple tore the leather covering of the
starboard plane I can't see that it's taken any damage. Provided the
engine's intact, the rest will be easy. Plenty of chance for
metalwork, here, and--"
"Going to take it right up to the village, now?" queried she,
anxiously glancing at the crowd of white and silent faces, all eagerly
staring--staring like so many wraiths in a strange dream.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"That depends," he answered. He seemed already to have forgotten
Kamrou and the threatening peril in the village, near the great flame.
Even the sound of distant chanting and the thudding of dull drums
stirred him not. Fascinated, he was walking all round the great
mechanical bird, which now lay wounded, weed-covered, sodden and
dripping, yet eloquent of infinite possibilities, there on that black,
unearthly beach.
All at once he spoke.
"Up to the village with it!" he commanded, waving his pistol-hand
toward the causeway and the fortified gates. "I can't risk leaving it
here. Come, father, speak to them! It's got to go into the village
right now!"
Then Kamrou's messenger, grasping the sense if not the words of the
command, strode forward--a tall, lithe figure of a man, well-knit and
hard of face. Under the torchlight the dilated pupils of his pinkish
eyes seemed to shine as phosphorescent as a cat's.
Crying out something unintelligible to Stern, he blocked the way.
Stern heard the name "Kamrou! Kamrou!"
"Well, what do you want now?" shouted the engineer, a huge and sudden
anger seizing him. Already super-excited by the labors of the day and
by the nervous strain of having recovered the sunken biplane, all this
talk of Kamrou, all this persistent opposition just at the most
inauspicious moment worked powerfully upon his irritated nerves.
Cool reason would have dictated diplomacy, parley, and, if possible,
truce. But Stern could not believe the Folk, for so long apparently
loyal to him and dominated by his influence, could work against their
vital interest and his own by deserting him now.
And, all his saner judgment failing him, heeding nothing of the
patriarch's entreaties or of the girl's remonstrance as she caught his
arm and tried to hold him back, he faced this cooly insolent
barbarian.
"You, damn you, what _d'you_ want?" he cried again, his finger itching
on the trigger of the automatic. "Think I'm going to quit for you, or
Kamrou, or anybody? Quit, _now?_"
"Think a civilized white man, sweating his heart out to save your
people here, is going to knuckle under to any savage that happens to
blow in and try to boss this job? If so, you've got another guess
coming! Stand back, you, or you'll get cold lead in just one minute!"
Quick words passed from the old man to the messenger and back again.
The patriarch cried again to him, and for a moment Stern saw the
barbarian's eyes flicker uneasily toward the revolver. But the calm
and cruel face never changed, nor did the savage take one step
backward.
"All right, then!" shouted Stern, "seeing red" in his overpowering
rage. "You want it--you'll get it--take it, so!"
Up he jerked the automatic, fair at the big barbarian's heart--a
splendid target by the torch-light, not ten feet distant; a sure shot.
But before he could pull trigger the strange two-pronged torch was
tossed on high by somebody behind the messenger, and through the dull
and foggy gloom a wild, fierce, penetrant cry wailed piercingly.
Came a shooting, numbing pain in Stern's right elbow. The arm dropped,
helpless. The boulder which, flung with accurate aim, had destroyed
his aim, rolled at his feet. The pistol clattered over the wet,
shining stones.
Stern, cursing madly, leaped and snatched for it with the other hand.
Before he could even reach it a swift foot tripped him powerfully.
Headlong he fell. And in a second one of the very ropes that had been
used to drag the Pauillac from the depths was lashed about his wrists,
his ankles, his struggling, fighting body.
"Beatrice! Shoot! Kill!" he shouted. "Help here! _Help!_ The
machine--they'll wreck it! Everything--lost! _Help!_"
His speech died in a choking mumble, stifled by the wet and sodden gag
they forced into his mouth.
About him the mob seethed. Through his brain a quick anguish thrilled,
the thought of Beatrice unaided and alone. Then came a wonder when the
death-stroke would fall--a frightful, sick despair that on the very
eve of triumph, of salvation for this Folk and for the world as well
as for Beatrice and himself, this unforeseen catastrophe should have
befallen.
He struggled still to catch some glimpse of Beatrice, to cry aloud to
her, to shield her; but, alone against five hundred, he was powerless.
Nowhere could he catch even a glimpse of the girl. In that shoving,
pushing, shouting horde, nothing could be made out. He knew not even
whether civil war had blazed or whether all alike had owned the rule
of Kamrou the Terrible.
Like buoys tossing upon the surface of a raging sea, the flaring
torches pitched and danced, rose, fell. And from a multitude of
throats, from beach and causeway, walls and town, strange shouts rang
up into the all-embracing, vague, enshrouding vapor.
Still striving to fight, bound as he was, he felt a great force
driving him along, on, on, up the beach and toward the village.
Mute, desperate, stark mad, he knew the Folk were half carrying, half
dragging him up the causeway.
As in a dark dream, he vaguely saw the great fortified gate with its
huge, torch-lighted monolithic lintel. Even upon this some of the Folk
were crowded now to watch the strange, incredible spectacle of the man
who had once turned the tide of battle against the Lanskaarn and had
saved all their lives, now haled like a criminal back into the
community he had rescued in its hour of sorest need.
His mind leaped to their first entry into the village--it seemed
months ago--also as prisoners. In a flash he recalled all that had
happened since and bitterly he mocked himself for having dared to
dream that their influence had really altered these strange, barbarous
souls, or uplifted them, or taught them anything at all.
"Now, now just as the rescue of these people was at hand, just as the
machine might have carried us and them back into the world, slowly,
one by one--_now comes defeat and death!_"
An exceeding great bitterness filled his soul once more at this harsh,
cynic turn of fate. But most of all he yearned toward Beatrice. That
he should die mattered nothing; but the thought of this girl perishing
at their hands there in the lost Abyss was dreadful as the pangs of
all the fabled hells.
Again he fought to hold back, to try for some sight, even a fleeting
glimpse of Beatrice; but the Folk with harsh cries drove him roughly
forward.
He could not even see the patriarch. All was confusion, glare, smoke,
noise, as he was thrust through the fortified gate, out into the
thronged plaza.
Everywhere rose cries, shouts, vociferations, among which he could
distinguish only one a thousand times repeated: "Kamrou! _Kamrou!_"
And through all his rage and bitter bafflement and pain, a sudden
great desire welled up in him to see this chief of the Folk, at
last--to lay eyes on this formidable, this terrible one--to stand face
to face with him in whose hand now lay everything, Kamrou!
Across the dim, fog-covered expanse of the plaza he saw the blue-green
shimmer of the great flame.
Thither, toward that strange, eternal fire and the ghastly circle of
the headless skeletons the Folk were drifting now. Thither his captors
were dragging him.
And there, he knew, Kamrou awaited Beatrice and him. There doom was to
be dealt out to them. There, and at once!
Thicker the press became. The flame was very near now, its droning
roar almost drowning the great and growing babel of cries.
On, on the Folk bore him. All at once he saw again that two-pronged
torch raised before him, going ahead; and a way cleared through the
press.
Along this way he was carried, no longer struggling, but eager now to
know the end, to meet it bravely and with calm philosophy, "as fits a
man."
And quite at once he found himself in sight of the many dangling
skeletons. Now the quivering jet of the flame grew visible. Now,
suddenly, he was thrust forward into a smooth and open space. Silence
fell.
Before him he saw Kamrou, Kamrou the Terrible, at last.