“Because we haven’t the key that fits this,” he replied.
“Who has the key?”
“The officers have keys to the guns they command,” he replied. “In the
captain’s cabin are keys to all the guns, and he carries a master key
that will unlock any of them. At least that was the system in the
ancient Vepajan navy, and it is doubtless the same today in the Thoran
navy.”
“I wish we could get hold of the master key,” I said.
“So do I,” he agreed, “but that is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I retorted.
He made no answer, and I did not pursue the subject, but I certainly
gave it a lot of thought.
As I worked, I noted the easy, noiseless propulsion of the ship and
asked Kamlot what drove it. His explanation was long and rather
technical; suffice it to say that the very useful element 93 (vik-ro) is
here again employed upon a substance called lor, which contains a
considerable proportion of the element yor-san (105). The action of
vik-ro upon yor-san results in absolute annihilation of the lor,
releasing all its energy. When you consider that there is eighteen
thousand million times as much energy liberated by the annihilation of a
ton of coal than by its combustion you will appreciate the inherent
possibilities of this marvellous Venusan scientific discovery. Fuel for
the life of the ship could be carried in a pint jar.
I noticed as the day progressed that we cruised parallel to a coast
line, after crossing one stretch of ocean where no land was in sight,
and thereafter for several days I noted the same fact—land was almost
always in sight. This suggested that the land area of Venus might be
much greater in proportion to its seas; but I had no opportunity to
satisfy my curiosity on that point, and of course I took no stock in the
maps that Danus had shown me, since the Amtorians’ conception of the
shape of their world precluded the existence of any dependable maps.
Kamlot and I had been separated, he having been detailed to duty in the
ship’s galley, which was located in the forward part of the main deck
house aft. I struck up a friendship with Honan; but we did not work
together, and at night we were usually so tired that we conversed but
little before falling asleep on the hard floor of our prison. One night,
however, the sorrow of Kamlot having been brought to my mind by my own
regretful recollections of the nameless girl of the garden, I asked
Honan who Duare was.
“She is the hope of Vepaja,” he replied, “perhaps the hope of a world.”
IX
SOLDIERS OF LIBERTY
Constant association breeds a certain _camaraderie_ even between
enemies. As the days passed, the hatred and contempt which the common
sailors appeared to have harbored for us when we first came aboard the
ship were replaced by an almost friendly familiarity, as though they had
discovered that we were not half bad fellows after all; and, for my
part, I found much to like in these simple though ignorant men. That
they were the dupes of unscrupulous leaders is about the worst that may
be said of them. Most of them were kindly and generous; but their
ignorance made them gullible, and their emotions were easily aroused by
specious arguments that would have made no impression upon intelligent
minds.
Naturally, I became better acquainted with my fellow prisoners than with
my guards, and our relations were soon established upon a friendly
basis. They were greatly impressed by my blond hair and blue eyes which
elicited inquiries as to my genesis. As I answered their questions
truthfully, they became deeply interested in my story, and every evening
after the day’s work was completed I was besieged for tales of the
mysterious, far distant world from which I came. Unlike the highly
intelligent Vepajans, they believed all that I told them, with the
result that I was soon a hero in their eyes; I should have been a god
had they had any conception of deities of any description.
In turn, I questioned them; and discovered, with no surprise, that they
were not at all contented with their lots. The former free men among
them had long since come to the realization that they had exchanged this
freedom, and their status of wage earners, for slavery to the state,
that could no longer be hidden by a nominal equality.
Among the prisoners were three to whom I was particularly attracted by
certain individual characteristics in each. There was Gamfor, for
instance, a huge, hulking fellow who had been a farmer in the old days
under the jongs. He was unusually intelligent, and although he had taken
part in the revolution, he was now bitter in his denunciation of the
Thorists, though this he was careful to whisper to me in secrecy.
Another was Kiron, the soldier, a clean-limbed, handsome, athletic
fellow who had served in the army of the jong, but mutinied with the
others at the time of the revolution. He was being disciplined now for
insubordination to an officer who had been a petty government clerk
before his promotion.
The third had been a slave. His name was Zog. What he lacked in
intelligence he made up in strength and good nature. He had killed an
officer who had struck him and was being taken back to Thora for trial
and execution. Zog was proud of the fact that he was a free man, though
he admitted that the edge was taken off his enthusiasm by the fact that
every one else was free and the realization that he had enjoyed more
freedom as a slave than he did now as a freeman.
“Then,” he explained, “I had one master; now I have as many masters as
there are government officials, spies, and soldiers, none of whom cares
anything about me, while my old master was kind to me and looked after
my welfare.”
“Would you like to be really free?” I asked him, for a plan had been
slowly forming in my mind.
But to my surprise he said, “No, I should rather be a slave.”
“But you’d like to choose your own master, wouldn’t you?” I demanded.
“Certainly,” he replied, “if I could find some one who would be kind to
me and protect me from the Thorists.”
“And if you could escape from them now, you would like to do so?”
“Of course! But what do you mean? I cannot escape from them.”
“Not without help,” I agreed, “but if others would join you, would you
make the attempt?”
“Why not? They are taking me back to Thora to kill me. I could be no
worse off, no matter what I did. But why do you ask all these
questions?”
“If we could get enough to join us, there is no reason why we should not
be free,” I told him. “When you are free, you may remain free or choose
a master to your liking.” I watched closely for his reaction.
“You mean another revolution?” he asked. “It would fail. Others have
tried, but they have always failed.”
“Not a revolution,” I assured him, “just a break for liberty.”
“But how could we do it?”
“It would not be difficult for a few men to take this ship,” I
suggested. “The discipline is poor, the night watches consist of too few
men; they are so sure of themselves that they would be taken completely
by surprise.”
Zog’s eyes lighted. “If we were successful, many of the crew would join
us,” he said. “Few of them are happy; nearly all of them hate their
officers. I think the prisoners would join us almost to a man, but you
must be careful of spies—they are everywhere. That is the greatest
danger you would have to face. There can be no doubt but there is at
least one spy among us prisoners.”
“How about Gamfor,” I asked; “is he all right?”
“You can depend upon Gamfor,” Zog assured me. “He does not say much, but
in his eyes I can read his hatred of them.”
“And Kiron?”
“Just the man!” exclaimed Zog. “He despises them, and he does not care
who knows it; that is the reason he is a prisoner. This is not his first
offense, and it is rumored that he will be executed for high treason.”
“But I thought that he only talked back to an officer and refused to
obey him,” I said.
“That is high treason—if they wish to get rid of a man,” explained Zog.
“You can depend on Kiron. Do you wish me to speak to him about the
matter?”
“No,” I told him. “I will speak to him and to Gamfor; then if anything
goes wrong before we are ready to strike, if a spy gets wind of our
plot, you will not be implicated.”
“I do not care about that,” he exclaimed. “They can kill me for but one
thing, and it makes no difference which thing it is they kill me for.”
“Nevertheless, I shall speak to them, and if they will join us, we can
then decide together how to approach others.”
Zog and I had been working together scrubbing the deck at the time, and
it was not until night that I had an opportunity to speak with Gamfor
and Kiron. Both were enthusiastic about the plan, but neither thought
that there was much likelihood that it would succeed. However, each
assured me of his support; and then we found Zog, and the four of us
discussed details throughout half the night. We had withdrawn to a far
corner of the room in which we were confined and spoke in low whispers
with our heads close together.
The next few days were spent in approaching recruits—a very ticklish
business, since they all assured me that it was almost a foregone
conclusion that there was a spy among us. Each man had to be sounded out
by devious means, and it had been decided that this work should be left
to Gamfor and Kiron. I was eliminated because of my lack of knowledge
concerning the hopes, ambitions, and the grievances of these people, or
their psychology; Zog was eliminated because the work required a much
higher standard of intelligence than he possessed.
Gamfor warned Kiron not to divulge our plan to any prisoner who too
openly avowed his hatred of the Thorists. “This is a time-worn trick
that all spies adopt to lull the suspicions of those they suspect of
harboring treasonable thoughts, and to tempt them into avowing their
apostasy. Select men whom you know to have a real grievance, and who are
moody and silent,” he counselled.
I was a little concerned about our ability to navigate the ship in the
event that we succeeded in capturing her, and I discussed this matter
with both Gamfor and Kiron. What I learned from them was illuminating,
if not particularly helpful.
The Amtorians have developed a compass similar to ours. According to
Kiron, it points always toward the center of Amtor—that is, toward the
center of the mythical circular area called Strabol, or Hot Country.
This statement assured me that I was in the southern hemisphere of the
planet, the needle of the compass, of course, pointing north toward the
north magnetic pole. Having no sun, moon, nor stars, their navigation is
all done by dead reckoning; but they have developed instruments of
extreme delicacy that locate land at great distances, accurately
indicating this distance and the direction; others that determine speed,
mileage, and drift, as well as a depth gauge wherewith they may record
soundings anywhere within a radius of a mile from the ship.
All of their instruments for measuring distances utilize the
radio-activity of the nuclei of various elements to accomplish their
ends. The gamma ray, for which they have, of course, another name, being
uninfluenced by the most powerful magnetic forces, is naturally the
ideal medium for their purposes. It moves in a straight line and at
uniform speed until it meets an obstruction, where, even though it may
not be deflected, it is retarded, the instrument recording such
retardation and the distance at which it occurs. The sounding device
utilizes the same principle. The instrument records the distance from
the ship at which the ray encounters the resistance of the ocean’s
bottom; by constructing a right triangle with this distance representing
the hypotenuse it is simple to compute both the depth of the ocean and
the distance from the ship at which bottom was found, for they have a
triangle of which one side and all three angles are known.
Owing to their extremely faulty maps, however, the value of these
instruments has been greatly reduced, for no matter what course they
lay, other than due north, if they move in a straight line they are
always approaching the antarctic regions. They may know that land is
ahead and its distance, but they are never sure what land it is, except
where the journey is a short and familiar one. For this reason they
cruise within sight of land wherever that is practical, with the result
that journeys that might otherwise be short are greatly protracted.
Another result is that the radius of Amtorian maritime exploration has
been greatly circumscribed; so much so that I believe there are enormous
areas in the south temperate zone that have never been discovered by the
Vepajans or the Thorists, while the very existence of the northern
hemisphere is even unguessed by them. On the maps that Danus showed me
considerable areas contained nothing but the single word _joram_, ocean.
However, notwithstanding all this (and possibly because of it), I was
confident that we could manage to navigate the ship quite as
satisfactorily as her present officers, and in this Kiron agreed.
“At least we know the general direction of Thora,” he argued; “so all we
have to do is sail in the other direction.”
As our plans matured, the feasibility of the undertaking appeared more
and more certain. We had recruited twenty prisoners, five of whom were
Vepajans, and this little band we organized into a secret order with
passwords, which were changed daily, signs, and a grip, the last
reminiscent of my fraternity days in college. We also adopted a name. We
called ourselves Soldiers of Liberty. I was chosen vookor, or captain.
Gamfor, Kiron, Zog, and Honan were my principal lieutenants, though I
told them that Kamlot would be second in command if we were successful
in taking the ship.
Our plan of action was worked out in detail; each man knew exactly what
was expected of him. Certain men were to overpower the watch, others
were to go to the officers’ quarters and secure their weapons and keys;
then we would confront the crew and offer those who chose an opportunity
to join us. The others—well, there I was confronted with a problem.
Almost to a man the Soldiers of Liberty wanted to destroy all those who
would not join us, and really there seemed no alternative; but I still
hoped that I could work out a more humane disposition of them.
There was one man among the prisoners of whom we were all suspicious. He
had an evil face, but that was not his sole claim upon our suspicions—he
was too loud in his denunciation of Thorism. We watched him carefully,
avoiding him whenever we could, and each member of the band was warned
to be careful when talking to him. It was evident to Gamfor first that
this fellow, whose name was Anoos, was suspicious. He persisted in
seeking out various members of our group and engaging them in
conversation which he always led around to the subject of Thorism and
his hatred of it, and he constantly questioned each of us about the
others, always insinuating that he feared certain ones were spies. But
of course we had expected something of this sort, and we felt that we
had guarded against it. The fellow might be as suspicious of us as he
wished; so long as he had no evidence against us I did not see how he
could harm us.
One day Kiron came to me evidently laboring under suppressed excitement.
It was at the end of the day, and our food had just been issued to us
for the evening meal—dried fish and a hard, dark-colored bread made of
coarse meal.
“I have news, Carson,” he whispered.
“Let us go off in a corner and eat,” I suggested, and we strolled away
together, laughing and talking of the day’s events in our normal voices.
As we seated ourselves upon the floor to eat our poor food, Zog joined
us.
“Sit close to us, Zog,” directed Kiron; “I have something to say that no
one but a Soldier of Liberty may hear.”
He did not say Soldier of Liberty, but “kung, kung, kung,” which are the
Amtorian initials of the order’s title. Kung is the name of the Amtorian
character that represents the _k_ sound in our language, and when I
first translated the initials I was compelled to smile at the similarity
they bore to those of a well-known secret order in the United States of
America.
“While I am talking,” Kiron admonished us, “you must laugh often, as
though I were telling a humorous tale; then, perhaps, no one will
suspect that I am not.
“Today I was working in the ship’s armory, cleaning pistols,” he
commenced. “The soldier who guarded me is an old friend of mine; we
served together in the army of the jong. He is as a brother to me. For
either the other would die. We talked of old times under the banners of
the jong and compared those days with these, especially we compared the
officers of the old régime with those of the present. Like me and like
every old soldier, he hates his officers, so we had a pleasant time
together.
“Finally he said to me, quite suddenly, ‘What is this I hear of a
conspiracy among the prisoners?’
“That almost took me off my feet; but I showed no emotion, for there are
times when one must not trust even a brother. ‘What have you heard?’ I
asked.
“‘I overheard one of the officers speaking to another,’ he told me. ‘He
said that a man named Anoos had reported the matter to the captain and
that the captain had told Anoos to get the names of all the prisoners
whom he knew to be involved in the conspiracy and to learn their plans
if he possibly could.’
“‘And what did Anoos say?’ I asked my friend.
“‘He said that if the captain would give him a bottle of wine he
believed that he could get one of the conspirators drunk and worm the
story from him. So the captain gave him a bottle of wine. That was
today.’
“My friend looked at me very closely, and then he said, ‘Kiron, we are
more than brothers. If I can help you, you have but to ask.’
“I knew this, and knowing how close to discovery we already were, I
decided to confide in him and enlist his aid; so I told him. I hope you
do not feel that I did wrong, Carson.”
“By no means,” I assured him. “We have been forced to tell others of our
plans whom we knew and trusted less well than you know and trust your
friend. What did he say when you had told him?”
“He said that he would help us, and that when we struck he would join
us. He promised, too, that many others of the soldiers would do
likewise; but the most important thing he did was to give me a key to
the armory.”
“Good!” I exclaimed. “There is no reason now why we should not strike at
once.”
“Tonight?” asked Zog eagerly.
“Tonight!” I replied. “Pass the word to Gamfor and Honan, and you four
to the other Soldiers of Liberty.”
We all laughed heartily, as though some one had told a most amusing
story, and then Kiron and Zog left me, to acquaint Gamfor and Honan with
our plan.
But upon Venus as upon earth, the best laid plans of mice and men “gang
aft a-gley,” which is slang for haywire. Every night since we had sailed
from the harbor of Vepaja the hatch had been left off our ill-smelling
prison to afford us ventilation, a single member of the watch patrolling
near to see that none of us came out; but tonight the hatch was closed.
“This,” growled Kiron, “is the result of Anoos’s work.”
“We shall have to strike by daylight,” I whispered, “but we cannot pass
the word tonight. It is so dark down here that we should certainly be
overheard by some one outside our own number if we attempted it.”
“Tomorrow then,” said Kiron.
I was a long time getting to sleep that night, for my mind was troubled
by fears for our entire plan. It was obvious now that the captain was
suspicious, and that while he might not know anything of the details of
what we purposed, he did know that something was in the air, and he was
taking no chances.
During the night, as I lay awake trying to plan for the morrow, I heard
someone prowling around the room, and now and again a whisper. I could
only wonder who it was and try to guess what he was about. I recalled
the bottle of wine that Anoos was supposed to have, and it occurred to
me that he might be giving a party, but the voices were too subdued to
bear out that theory. Finally I heard a muffled cry, a noise that
sounded like a brief scuffle, and then silence again fell upon the
chamber.
“Some one had a bad dream,” I thought and fell asleep.
Morning came at last, and the hatch was removed, letting a little light
in to dissipate the gloom of our prison. A sailor lowered a basket
containing the food for our meager breakfast. We gathered about it and
each took his share, and moved away to eat it, when suddenly there was a
cry from the far side of the room.
“Look what’s here!” the man shouted. “Anoos has been murdered!”
X
MUTINY
Yes, Anoos had been murdered, and there was a great hue and cry, much
more of a hue and cry, it seemed to me, than the death of an ordinary
prisoner should have aroused. Officers and soldiers swarmed in our
quarters. They found Anoos stretched out on his back, a bottle of wine
at his side. His throat was discolored where powerful fingers had
crushed it. Anoos had been choked to death.
Soon they herded us on deck, where we were searched for weapons
following an order from the captain of the ship, who had come forward to
conduct an investigation. He was angry and excited and, I believe,
somewhat frightened. One by one, he questioned us. When it was my turn
to be questioned, I did not tell him what I had heard during the night;
I told him that I had slept all night on the far side of the room from
where Anoos’s body was discovered.
“Were you acquainted with the dead man?” he asked.
“No more so than with any of the other prisoners,” I replied.
“But you are very well acquainted with some of them,” he said rather
pointedly, I thought. “Have you ever spoken with the man?”
“Yes, he has talked to me on several occasions.”
“About what?” demanded the captain.
“Principally about his grievances against the Thorists.”
“But he was a Thorist,” exclaimed the captain.
I knew that he was trying to pump me to discover if I harbored any
suspicions concerning the actual status of Anoos, but he was not clever
enough to succeed. “I certainly would never had suspected it from his
conversation,” I replied. “If he were a Thorist, he must have been a
traitor to his country, for he continually sought to enlist my interest
in a plan to seize the ship and murder all her officers. I think he
approached others, also.” I spoke in a tone loud enough to be heard by
all, for I wanted the Soldiers of Liberty to take the cue from me. If
enough of us told the same story it might convince the officers that
Anoos’s tale of a conspiracy was hatched in his own brain and worked up
by his own efforts in an attempt to reap commendation and reward from
his superiors, a trick by no means foreign to the ethics of spies.
“Did he succeed in persuading any of the prisoners to join him?” asked
the captain.
“I think not; they all laughed at him.”
“Have you any idea who murdered him?”
“Probably some patriot who resented his treason,” I lied glibly.
As he questioned the other men along similar lines, I was pleased to
discover that nearly every one of the Soldiers of Liberty had been
approached by the perfidious Anoos, whose traitorous overtures they had
virtuously repulsed. Zog said that he had never talked with the man,
which, to the best of my knowledge, was the truth.
When the captain finished his investigation, he was farther from the
truth than when he commenced it, for I am certain that he went aft
convinced that there had been no truth in the tales that Anoos had
carried to him.
I had been considerably worried at the time we were being searched, for
fear that the key to the armory would be discovered on Kiron, but it had
not been, and later he told me that he had hidden it in his hair the
night before as a precaution against just such an eventuality as had
occurred.
The Amtorian day consists of 26 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds of earth
time, which the Amtorians divide into twenty equal periods called te,
which, for clarity, I shall translate into its nearest earthly
equivalent, hour, although it contains 80.895 earth minutes. On
shipboard, the hours are sounded by a trumpeter, there being a
distinguishing bar of music for each hour of the day. The first hour, or
one o’clock, corresponds to mean sunrise. It is then that the prisoners
are awakened and given food; forty minutes later they start work, which
continues until the tenth hour, with a short recess for food in the
middle of the day. Occasionally we were allowed to quit work at the
ninth and even the eighth hour, according to the caprices of our
masters.
On this day the Soldiers of Liberty congregated during the midday rest
period, and, my mind being definitely determined on immediate action, I
passed the word around that we would strike during the afternoon at the
moment the trumpeter sounded the seventh hour. As many of us as were
working aft near the armory were to make a dash for it with Kiron, who
would unlock it in the event that it were locked. The remainder were to
attack the soldiers nearest them with anything that they could use as
weapons, or with their bare hands if they had no weapons, and take the
soldiers’ pistols and swords from them. Five of us were to account for
the officers. Half of our number was to constantly shout our battle cry,
“For liberty!” The other half was instructed to urge the remaining
prisoners and the soldiers to join us.
It was a mad scheme and one in which only desperate men could have found
hope.
The seventh hour was chosen because at that time the officers were
nearly all congregated in the wardroom, where a light meal and wine were
served them daily. We should have preferred launching our plan at night,
but we feared a continuation of the practice of locking us below deck
would prevent, and our experience with Anoos had taught us that we might
expect the whole conspiracy to be divulged by another spy at any time;
therefore we dared not wait.
I must confess to a feeling of increasing excitement as the hour
approached. As, from time to time, I glanced at the other members of our
little band, I thought that I could note signs of nervousness in some of
them, while others worked on as placidly as though nothing unusual was
about to occur. Zog was one of these. He was working near me. He never
glanced toward the tower deck from which the trumpeter would presently
sound the fateful notes, though it was with difficulty that I kept my
eyes from it at all. No one would have thought that Zog was planning to
attack the soldier lolling near him, nor have imagined that the night
before he had murdered a man. He was humming a tune, as he polished the
barrel of the big gun on which he was working.
Gamfor and, fortunately, Kiron were working aft, scrubbing the deck, and
I saw that Kiron kept scrubbing closer and closer to the door of the
armory. How I wished for Kamlot as the crucial moment approached! He
could have done so much to insure the success of our _coup_, and yet he
did not even know that such a stroke was contemplated, much less that it
was so soon to be launched.
As I glanced about, I met Zog’s gaze. Very solemnly he closed his left
eye. At last he had given a sign that he was alert and ready. It was a
little thing, but it put new heart into me. For some reason, during the
past half hour I had felt very much alone.
The time was approaching the zero hour. I moved closer to my guard, so
that I stood directly in front of him with my back toward him. I knew
precisely what I was going to do, and I knew that it would be
successful. Little did the man behind me dream that in a minute, or
perhaps a few seconds, he would be lying senseless on the deck, or that
the man he guarded would be carrying his sword, his dagger, and his
pistol as the last notes of the seventh hour floated sweetly out across
the calm waters of this Amtorian sea.
My back was now toward the deck houses. I could not see the trumpeter
when he emerged from the tower to sound the hour, but I knew that it
could not be long now before he stepped out onto the tower deck. Yet
when the first note sounded I was as startled as though I had expected
it never to sound. I presume it was the reaction after the long period
of nervous tension.
My nervousness, however, was all mental; it did not affect my physical
reactions to the needs of the moment. As the first note came softly down
to my awaiting ears, I pivoted to a heel and swung my right for the chin
of my unsuspecting guard. It was one of those blows that is often
described as a haymaker, and it made hay. The fellow dropped in his
tracks. As I stooped to recover his arms, pandemonium broke loose upon
the deck. There were shrieks and groans and curses, and above all rose
the war cry of the Soldiers of Liberty—my band had struck, and it had
struck hard.
For the first time now, I heard the weird staccato hiss of Amtorian
firearms. You have heard an X-ray machine in operation? It was like
that, but louder and more sinister. I had wrenched the sword and pistol
from the scabbard and holster of my fallen guard, not taking the time to
remove his belt. Now I faced the scene for which I had so long waited. I
saw the powerful Zog wrest the weapons from a soldier, and then lift the
man’s body above his head and cast it overboard. Evidently Zog had no
time for proselyting.
At the door to the armory a battle was being waged; men were trying to
enter, and soldiers were shooting them down. I ran in that direction. A
soldier leaped in front of me, and I heard the hiss of the death rays
that must have passed close to my body, as he tried to stop me. He must
have been either nervous or a very poor shot, for he missed me. I turned
my own weapon upon him and pressed the lever. The man slumped to the
deck with a hole in his chest, and I ran on.
The fight at the door of the armory was hand to hand with swords,
daggers, and fists, for by now the members of the two factions were so
intermingled that none dared use a firearm for fear of injuring a
comrade. Into this mêlée I leaped. Tucking the pistol into the band of
my G string, I ran my sword through a great brute who was about to knife
Honan; then I grabbed another by the hair and dragged him from the door,
shouting to Honan to finish him—it took too long to run a sword into a
man and then pull it out again. What I wanted was to get into the armory
to Kiron’s side and help him.
All the time I could hear my men shouting, “For liberty!” or urging the
soldiers to join us—as far as I had been able to judge, all the
prisoners had already done so. Now another soldier barred my way. His
back was toward me, and I was about to seize him and hurl him back to
Honan and the others who were fighting at his side, when I saw him slip
his dagger into the heart of a soldier in front of him and, as he did
so, cry, “For liberty!” Here was one convert at least. I did not know it
then, but at that time there were already many such.
When I finally got into the armory, I found Kiron issuing arms as fast
as he could pass them out. Many of the mutineers were crawling through
the windows of the room to get weapons, and to each of these Kiron
passed several swords and pistols, directing the men to distribute them
on deck.
Seeing that all was right here, I gathered a handful of men and started
up the companionway to the upper decks, from which the officers were
firing down upon the mutineers and, I may say, upon their own men as
well. In fact, it was this heartless and stupid procedure that swung
many of the soldiers to our side. Almost the first man I saw as I leaped
to the level of the second deck was Kamlot. He had a sword in one hand
and a pistol in the other, and he was firing rapidly at a group of
officers who were evidently attempting to reach the main deck to take
command of the loyal soldiers there.
You may be assured that it did my heart good to see my friend again, and
as I ran to his side and opened fire on the officers, he flashed me a
quick smile of recognition.
Three of the five officers opposing us had fallen, and now the remaining
two turned and fled up the companionway to the top deck. Behind us were
twenty or more mutineers eager to reach the highest deck, where all the
surviving officers had now taken refuge, and I could see more mutineers
crowding up the companionway from the main deck to join their fellows.
Kamlot and I led the way to the next deck, but at the head of the
companionway the surging mob of howling, cursing mutineers brushed past
us to hurl themselves upon the officers.
The men were absolutely out of control, and as there were but few of my
original little band of Soldiers of Liberty among them, the majority of
them knew no leader, with the result that it was every man for himself.
I wished to protect the officers, and it had been my intention to do so;
but I was helpless to avert the bloody orgy that ensued with a resulting
loss of life entirely disproportionate to the needs of the occasion.
The officers, fighting for their lives with their backs against a wall,
took heavy toll of the mutineers, but they were eventually overwhelmed
by superior numbers. Each of the common soldiers and sailors appeared to
have a special grudge to settle either with some individual officer or
with them all as a class and for the time all were transformed into
maniacal furies, as time and again they charged the last fortress of
authority, the oval tower on the upper deck.
Each officer that fell, either killed or wounded, was hurled over the
rail to the deck below, where willing hands cast the body to the main
deck from which, in turn, it was thrown into the sea. And then, at last,
the mutineers gained access to the tower, from which they dragged the
remaining officers, butchering them on the upper deck or hurling them to
their shrieking fellows below.
The captain was the last to be dragged out. They had found him hiding in
a cupboard in his cabin. At sight of him arose such a scream of hate and
rage as I hope never to hear again. Kamlot and I were standing at one
side, helpless witnesses of this holocaust of hate. We saw them
literally tear the captain to pieces and cast him into the sea.
With the death of the captain the battle was over, the ship was ours. My
plan had succeeded, but the thought suddenly assailed me that I had
created a terrible power that it might be beyond me to control. I
touched Kamlot on the arm. “Follow me,” I directed and started for the
main deck.
“Who is at the bottom of this?” asked Kamlot as we forced our way among
the excited mutineers.
“The mutiny was my plan, but not the massacre,” I replied, “Now we must
attempt to restore order out of chaos.”
“If we can,” he remarked dubiously.
As I made my way toward the main deck, I collected as many of the
original band of Soldiers of Liberty as we passed, and when I finally
reached my destination, I gathered most of them about me. Among the
mutineers I had discovered the trumpeter who had unknowingly sounded the
signal for the outbreak, and him I caused to sound the call that should
assemble all hands on the main deck. Whether or not the notes of the
trumpet would be obeyed, I did not know, but so strong is the habit of
discipline among trained men that immediately the call sounded the men
began to pour onto the deck from all parts of the vessel.
I mounted the breech of one of the guns, and, surrounded by my faithful
band, I announced that the Soldiers of Liberty had taken over the ship,
that those who wished to accompany us must obey the vookor of the band;
the others would be put ashore.
“Who is vookor?” demanded a soldier whom I recognized as one of those
who had been most violent in the attack upon the officers.
“I am,” I replied.
“The vookor should be one of us,” he growled.
“Carson planned the mutiny and carried it to success,” shouted Kiron.
“Carson is vookor.”
From the throats of all my original band and from a hundred new recruits
rose a cheer of approval, but there were many who remained silent or
spoke in grumbling undertones to those nearest them. Among these was
Kodj, the soldier who had objected to my leadership, and I saw that
already a faction was gathering about him.
“It is necessary,” I said, “that all men return at once to their duties,
for the ship must be handled, no matter who commands. If there is any
question about leadership, that can be settled later. In the meantime, I
am in command; Kamlot, Gamfor, Kiron, Zog, and Honan are my lieutenants;
with me, they will officer the ship. All weapons must be turned over
immediately to Kiron at the armory, except those carried by men
regularly detailed by him for guard duty.”
“No one is going to disarm me,” blustered Kodj. “I have as much right to
carry weapons as anyone. We are all free men now. I take orders from no
one.”
Zog, who had edged closer to him as he spoke, seized him by the throat
with one of his huge hands and with the other tore the belt from about
his hips. “You take orders from the new vookor or you go overboard,” he
growled, as he released the man and handed his weapons to Kiron.
For a moment there was silence, and there was a tenseness in the
situation that boded ill; then some one laughed and cried, “No one is
going to disarm me,” mimicking Kodj. That brought a general laugh, and I
knew that for the time being the danger was over. Kiron, sensing that
the moment was ripe, ordered the men to come to the armory and turn in
their weapons, and the remainder of the original band herded them aft in
his wake.
It was an hour before even a semblance of order or routine had been
reëstablished. Kamlot, Gamfor, and I were gathered in the chart room in
the tower. Our consort was hull down below the horizon, and we were
discussing the means that should be adopted to capture her without
bloodshed and rescue Duare and the other Vepajan prisoners aboard her.
The idea had been in my mind from the very inception of the plan to
seize our own ship, and it had been the first subject that Kamlot had
broached after we had succeeded in quieting the men and restoring order;
but Gamfor was frankly dubious concerning the feasibility of the
project.
“The men are not interested in the welfare of Vepajans,” he reminded us,
“and they may resent the idea of endangering their lives and risking
their new-found liberty in a venture that means nothing whatever to
them.”
“How do you feel about it, personally?” I asked him.
“I am under your orders,” he replied; “I will do anything that you
command, but I am only one—you have two hundred whose wishes you must
consult.”
“I shall consult only my officers,” I replied; “to the others, I shall
issue orders.”
“That is the only way,” said Kamlot in a tone of relief.
“Inform the other officers that we shall attack the _Sovong_ at
daybreak,” I instructed them.
“But we dare not fire on her,” protested Kamlot, “lest we endanger the
life of Duare.”
“I intend boarding her,” I replied. “There will be no one but the watch
on deck at that hour. On two other occasions the ships have been brought
close together on a calm sea; so our approach will arouse no suspicion.
The boarding party will consist of a hundred men who will remain
concealed until the command to board is given when the ships are
alongside one another. At that hour in the morning the sea is usually
calm; if it is not calm tomorrow morning we shall have to postpone the
attack until another morning.
“Issue strict orders that there is to be no slaughter; no one is to be
killed who does not resist. We shall remove all of the _Sovong_’s small
arms and the bulk of her provisions, as well as the Vepajan prisoners,
to the _Sofal_.”
“And then what do you propose doing?” asked Gamfor.
“I am coming to that,” I replied, “but first I wish to ascertain the
temper of the men aboard the _Sofal_. You and Kamlot will inform the
other officers of my plans insofar as I have explained them; then
assemble the original members of the Soldiers of Liberty and explain my
intentions to them. When this has been done, instruct them to
disseminate the information among the remainder of the ship’s company,
reporting to you the names of all those who do not receive the plan with
favor. These we shall leave aboard the _Sovong_ with any others who may
elect to transfer to her. At the eleventh hour muster the men on the
main deck. At that time I will explain my plans in detail.”
After Kamlot and Gamfor had departed to carry out my orders, I returned
to the chart room. The _Sofal_, moving ahead at increased speed, was
slowly overhauling the _Sovong_, though not at a rate that might suggest
pursuit. I was certain that the _Sovong_ knew nothing of what had
transpired upon her sister ship, for the Amtorians are unacquainted with
wireless communication, and there had been no time for the officers of
the _Sofal_ to signal their fellows aboard the Sovong, so suddenly had
the mutiny broken and so quickly had it been carried to a conclusion.
As the eleventh hour approached, I noticed little groups of men
congregated in different parts of the ship, evidently discussing the
information that the Soldiers of Liberty had spread among them. One
group, larger than the others, was being violently harangued by a
loud-mouthed orator whom I recognized as Kodj. It had been apparent from
the first that the fellow was a trouble maker. Just how much influence
he had, I did not know; but I felt that whatever it was, it would be
used against me. I hoped to be rid of him after we had taken the
_Sovong_.
The men congregated rapidly as the trumpeter sounded the hour, and I
came down the companionway to address them. I stood just above them, on
one of the lower steps, where I could overlook them and be seen by all.
Most of them were quiet and appeared attentive. There was one small
group muttering and whispering—Kodj was its center.
“At daybreak we shall board and take the _Sovong_,” I commenced. “You
will receive your orders from your immediate officers, but I wish to
emphasize one in particular—there is to be no unnecessary killing. After
we have taken the ship we shall transfer to the _Sofal_ such provisions,
weapons, and prisoners as we wish to take with us. At this time, also,
we shall transfer from the _Sofal_ to the _Sovong_ all of you who do not
wish to remain on this ship under my command, as well as those whom I do
not care to take with me,” and as I said this, I looked straight at Kodj
and the malcontents surrounding him.
“I shall explain what I have in mind for the future, so that each of you
may be able to determine between now and daybreak whether he cares to
become a member of my company. Those who do will be required to obey
orders; but they will share in the profits of the cruise, if there are
profits. The purposes of the expedition are twofold: To prey on Thorist
shipping and to explore the unknown portions of Amtor after we have
returned the Vepajan prisoners to their own country.
“There will be excitement and adventure; there will be danger, too; and
I want no cowards along, nor any trouble makers. There should be
profits, for I am assured that richly laden Thorist ships constantly ply
the known seas of Amtor; and I am informed that we can always find a
ready market for such spoils of war as fall into our hands—and war it
shall be, with the Soldiers of Liberty fighting the oppression and
tyranny of Thorism.
“Return to your quarters now, and be prepared to give a good account of
yourselves at daybreak.”
XI
DUARE
I got little sleep that night. My officers were constantly coming to me
with reports. From these I learned, what was of the greatest importance
to me, the temper of the crew. None was averse to taking the _Sovong_,
but there was a divergence of opinion as to what we should do
thereafter. A few wanted to be landed on Thoran soil, so that they could
make their way back to their homes; the majority was enthusiastic about
plundering merchant ships; the idea of exploring the unknown waters of
Amtor filled most of them with fear; some were averse to restoring the
Vepajan prisoners to their own country; and there was an active and
extremely vocal minority that insisted that the command of the vessel
should be placed in the hands of Thorans. In this I could see the hand
of Kodj even before they told me that the suggestion had come from the
coterie that formed his following.
“But there are fully a hundred,” said Gamfor, “upon whose loyalty you
may depend. These have accepted you as their leader, and they will
follow you and obey your commands.”
“Arm these,” I directed, “and place all others below deck until after we
have taken the _Sovong_. How about the klangan? They took no part in the
mutiny. Are they for us or against us?”
Kiron laughed. “They received no orders one way or the other,” he
explained. “They have no initiative. Unless they are motivated by such
primitive instincts as hunger, love, or hate, they do nothing without
orders from a superior.”
“And they don’t care who their master is,” interjected Zog. “They serve
loyally enough until their master dies, or sells them, or gives them
away, or is overthrown; then they transfer the same loyalty to a new
master.”
“They have been told that you are their new master,” said Kamlot, “and
they will obey you.”
As there were only five of the birdmen aboard the _Sofal_, I had not
been greatly exercised about their stand; but I was glad to learn that
they would not be antagonistic.
At the twentieth hour I ordered the hundred upon whom we could depend
assembled and held in the lower deck house, the others having all been
confined below earlier in the night, in the accomplishment of which a
second mutiny was averted only by the fact that all the men had been
previously disarmed except the loyal Soldiers of Liberty.
All during the night we had been gradually gaining upon the unsuspecting
_Sovong_ until now we were scarcely a hundred yards astern of her,
slightly aport. Across our starboard bow I could see her looming darkly
in the mysterious nocturnal glow of the moonless Amtorian night, her
lanterns white and colored points of light, her watch dimly visible upon
her decks.
Closer and closer the _Sofal_ crept toward her prey. A Soldier of
Liberty, who had once been an officer in the Thoran navy, was at the
wheel; no one was on deck but the members of the watch; in the lower
deck house a hundred men were huddled waiting for the command to board;
I stood beside Honan in the chart room (he was to command the _Sofal_
while I led the boarding party), my eyes upon the strange Amtorian
chronometer. I spoke a word to him and he moved a lever. The _Sofal_
crept a little closer to the _Sovong_. Then Honan whispered an order to
the helmsman and we closed in upon our prey.
I hastened down the companionway to the main deck and gave the signal to
Kamlot standing in the doorway of the deck house. The two ships were
close now and almost abreast. The sea was calm; only a gentle swell
raised and lowered the softly gliding ships. Now we were so close that a
man could step across the intervening space from the deck of one ship to
that of the other.
The officer of the watch aboard the _Sovong_ hailed us. “What are you
about?” he demanded. “Sheer off, there!”
For answer I ran across the deck of the _Sofal_ and leaped aboard the
other ship, a hundred silent men following in my wake. There was no
shouting and little noise—only the shuffling of sandalled feet and the
subdued clank of arms.
Behind us the grappling hooks were thrown over the rail of the _Sovong_.
Every man had been instructed as to the part he was to play. Leaving
Kamlot in command on the main deck, I ran to the tower deck with a dozen
men, while Kiron led a score of fighting men to the second deck where
most of the officers were quartered.
Before the officer of the watch could gather his scattered wits, I had
him covered with a pistol. “Keep quiet,” I whispered, “and you will not
be harmed.” My plan was to take as many of them as possible before a
general alarm could be sounded and thus minimize the necessity for
bloodshed; therefore, the need for silence. I turned him over to one of
my men after disarming him; and then I sought the captain, while two of
my detachment attended to the helmsman.
I found the officer for whom I sought reaching for his weapons. He had
been awakened by the unavoidable noise of the boarding party, and,
suspecting that something was amiss, had seized his weapons as he arose
and uncovered the lights in his cabin.
I was upon him as he raised his pistol, and struck it from his hand
before he could fire; but he stepped back with his sword on guard, and
thus we stood facing one another for a moment.
“Surrender,” I told him, “and you will not be harmed.”
“Who are you?” he demanded, “and where did you come from?”
“I was a prisoner on board the _Sofal_,” I replied, “but now I command
her. If you wish to avoid bloodshed, come out on deck with me and give
the command to surrender.”
“And then what?” he demanded. “Why have you boarded us if not to kill?”
“To take off provisions, weapons, and the Vepajan prisoners,” I
explained.
Suddenly the hissing staccato of pistol fire came up to us from the deck
below.
“I thought there was to be no killing!” he snapped.
“If you want to stop it, get out there and give the command to
surrender,” I replied.
“I don’t believe you,” he cried. “It’s a trick,” and he came at me with
his sword.
I did not wish to shoot him down in cold blood, and so I met his attack
with my own blade. The advantage was on his side in the matter of skill,
for I had not yet fully accustomed myself to the use of the Amtorian
sword; but I had an advantage in strength and reach and in some tricks
of German swordplay that I had learned while I was in Germany.
The Amtorian sword is primarily a cutting weapon, its weight near the
tip making it particularly effective for this method of attack, though
it lessens its effectiveness in parrying thrusts, rendering it a rather
sluggish defensive weapon. I therefore found myself facing a savage
cutting attack against which I had difficulty in defending myself. The
officer was an active man and skillful with the sword. Being
experienced, it did not take him long to discover I was a novice, with
the result that he pressed his advantage viciously, so that I soon
regretted my magnanimity in not resorting to my pistol before the
encounter began; but it was too late now—the fellow kept me so busy that
I had no opportunity to draw the weapon.
He forced me back and around the room until he stood between me and the
doorway, and then, having me where no chance for escape remained, he set
to work to finish me with dispatch. The duel, as far as I was concerned,
was fought wholly on the defensive. So swift and persistent was his
attack that I could only defend myself, and not once in the first two
minutes of the encounter did I aim a single blow at him.
I wondered what had become of the men who had accompanied me; but pride
would not permit me to call upon them for help nor did I learn until
later that it would have availed me nothing, since they were having all
that they could attend to in repelling the attack of several officers
who had run up from below immediately behind them.
The teeth of my antagonist were bared in a grim and ferocious smile, as
he battered relentlessly at my guard, as though he already sensed
victory and was gloating in anticipation. The clanging of steel on steel
now drowned all sounds from beyond the four walls of the cabin where we
fought; I could not tell if fighting were continuing in other parts of
the ship, nor, if it were, whether it were going in our favor or against
us. I realized that I _must_ know these things, that I was responsible
for whatever took place aboard the _Sovong_, and that I must get out of
that cabin and lead my men either in victory or defeat.
Such thoughts made my position even more impossible than as though only
my life were at stake and drove me to attempt heroic measures for
releasing myself from my predicament and my peril. I must destroy my
adversary, and I must do so at once!
He had me now with my back almost against the wall. Already his point
had touched me upon the cheek once and twice upon the body, and though
the wounds were but scratches, I was covered with blood. Now he leaped
upon me in a frenzy of determination to have done with me instantly, but
this time I did not fall back. I parried his cut, so that his sword
passed to the right of my body which was now close to his; and then I
drew back my point, and, before he could recover himself, drove it
through his heart.
As he sagged to the floor, I jerked my sword from his body and ran from
his cabin. The entire episode had required but a few minutes, though it
had seemed much longer to me, yet in that brief time much had occurred
on the decks and in the cabins of the _Sovong_. The upper decks were
cleared of living enemies; one of my own men was at the wheel, another
at the controls; there was still fighting on the main deck where some of
the _Sovong_’s officers were making a desperate last stand with a
handful of their men. But by the time I reached the scene of the battle,
it was over; the officers, assured by Kamlot that their lives would be
spared, had surrendered—the _Sovong_ was ours. The _Sofal_ had taken her
first prize!
As I sprang into the midst of the excited warriors on the main deck, I
must have presented a sorry spectacle, bleeding, as I was, from my three
wounds; but my men greeted me with loud cheers. I learned later that my
absence from the fighting on the main deck had been noticed and had made
a poor impression on my men, but when they saw me return bearing the
scars of combat, my place in their esteem was secured. Those three
little scratches proved of great value to me, but they were as nothing
in comparison with the psychological effect produced by the wholly
disproportionate amount of blood they had spilled upon my naked hide.
We now quickly rounded up our prisoners and disarmed them. Kamlot took a
detachment of men and released the Vepajan captives whom he transferred
at once to the _Sofal_. They were nearly all women, but I did not see
them as they were taken from the ship, being engaged with other matters.
I could imagine, though, the joy in the hearts of Kamlot and Duare at
this reunion, which the latter at least had probably never even dared to
hope for.
Rapidly we transferred all of the small arms of the _Sovong_ to the
_Sofal_, leaving only sufficient to equip the officers of the
ill-starred vessel. This work was intrusted to Kiron and was carried out
by our own men, while Gamfor, with a contingent of our new-made
prisoners, carried all of the _Sovong_’s surplus provisions aboard our
own ship. This done, I ordered all the _Sovong_’s guns thrown
overboard—by that much at least I would cripple the power of Thora. The
last act in this drama of the sea was to march our one hundred
imprisoned malcontents from the _Sofal_ to the _Sovong_ and present them
to the latters’ new commander with my compliments. He did not seem
greatly pleased, however, nor could I blame him. Neither were the
prisoners pleased. Many of them begged me to take them back aboard the
_Sofal_; but I already had more men than I felt were needed to navigate
and defend the ship; and each of the prisoners had been reported as
having expressed disapproval of some part or all of our plan; so that I,
who must have absolute loyalty and coöperation, considered them
valueless to me.
Kodj, strange to say, was the most persistent. He almost went on his
knees as he pleaded with me to permit him to remain with the _Sofal_,
and he promised me such loyalty as man had never known before; but I had
had enough of Kodj and told him so. Then, when he found that I could not
be moved, he turned upon me, swearing by all his ancestors that he would
get even with me yet, even though it took a thousand years.
Returning to the deck of the _Sofal_, I ordered the grappling hooks cast
off; and presently the two ships were under way again, the _Sovong_
proceeding toward the Thoran port that was her destination, the _Sofal_
back toward Vepaja. Now, for the first time, I had opportunity to
inquire into our losses and found that we had suffered four killed and
twenty-one wounded, the casualties among the crew of the _Sovong_ having
been much higher.
For the greater part of the remainder of the day I was busy with my
officers organizing the personnel of the _Sofal_ and systematizing the
activities of this new and unfamiliar venture, in which work Kiron and
Gamfor were of inestimable value; and it was not until late in the
afternoon that I had an opportunity to inquire into the welfare of the
rescued Vepajan captives. When I asked Kamlot about them, he said that
they were none the worse for their captivity aboard the _Sovong_.
“You see, these raiding parties have orders to bring the women to Thora
unharmed and in good condition,” he explained. “They are destined for
more important persons than ships’ officers, and that is their
safeguard.
“However, Duare said that notwithstanding this, the captain made
advances to her. I wish I might have known it while I was still aboard
the _Sovong_, that I might have killed him for his presumption.”
Kamlot’s tone was bitter and he showed signs of unusual excitement.
“Let your mind rest at ease,” I begged him; “Duare has been avenged.”
“What do you mean?”
“I killed the captain myself,” I explained.
He clapped a hand upon my shoulder, his eyes alight with pleasure.
“Again you have won the undying gratitude of Vepaja,” he cried. “I wish
that it might have been my good fortune to have killed the beast and
thus wiped out the insult upon Vepaja, but if I could not be the one,
then I am glad that it was you, Carson, rather than another.”
I thought that he took the matter rather seriously and was placing too
much importance upon the action of the _Sovong_’s captain, since it had
resulted in no harm to the girl; but then, of course, I realized that
love plays strange tricks upon a man’s mental processes, so that an
affront to a mistress might be magnified to the proportions of a
national calamity.
“Well, it is all over now,” I said, “and your sweetheart has been
returned to you safe and sound.”
At that he looked horrified. “My sweetheart!” he exclaimed. “In the name
of the ancestors of all the jongs! Do you mean to tell me that you do
not know who Duare is?”
“I thought of course that she was the girl you loved,” I confessed. “Who
is she?”
“Of course I love her,” he explained; “all Vepaja loves her—she is the
virgin daughter of a Vepajan jong!”
Had he been announcing the presence of a goddess on shipboard, his tone
could have been no more reverential and awed. I endeavored to appear
more impressed than I was, lest I offend him.
“Had she been the woman of your choice,” I said, “I should have been
even more pleased to have had a part in her rescue than had she been the
daughter of a dozen jongs.”
“That is nice of you,” he replied, “but do not let other Vepajans hear
you say such things. You have told me of the divinities of that strange
world from which you come; the persons of the jong and his children are
similarly sacred to us.”
“Then, of course, they shall be sacred to me,” I assured him.
“By the way, I have word for you that should please you—a Vepajan would
consider it a high honor. Duare desires to see you, that she may thank
you personally. It is irregular, of course; but then circumstances have
rendered strict adherence to the etiquette and customs of our country
impracticable, if not impossible. Several hundred men already have
looked upon her, many have spoken to her, and nearly all of them were
enemies; so it can do no harm if she sees and speaks with her defenders
and her friends.”
I did not understand what he was driving at, but I assented to what he
had said and told him that I would pay my respects to the princess
before the day was over.
I was very busy; and, if the truth must be told, I was not particularly
excited about visiting the princess. In fact, I rather dreaded it, for I
am not particularly keen about fawning and kotowing to royalty or
anything else; but I decided that out of respect for Kamlot’s feelings I
must get the thing over as soon as possible, and after he had left to
attend to some duty, I made my way to the quarters allotted to Duare on
the second deck.
The Amtorians do not knock on a door—they whistle. It is rather an
improvement, I think, upon our custom. One has one’s own distinctive
whistle. Some of them are quite elaborate airs. One soon learns to
recognize the signals of one’s friends. A knock merely informs you that
some one wishes to enter; a whistle tells you the same thing and also
reveals the identity of your caller.
My signal, which is very simple, consists of two short low notes
followed by a higher longer note; and as I stood before the door of
Duare and sounded this, my mind was not upon the princess within but
upon another girl far away in the tree city of Kooaad, in Vepaja. She
was often in my mind—the girl whom I had glimpsed but twice, to whom I
had spoken but once and that time to avow a love that had enveloped me
as completely, spontaneously, and irrevocably as would death upon some
future day.
In response to my signal a soft, feminine voice bade me enter. I stepped
into the room and faced Duare. At sight of me her eyes went wide and a
quick flush mounted her cheeks. “You!” she exclaimed.