THE CHEMIST AND HIS SON
For an hour or more the three adventurers followed their strange guide
in silence through the dense, trackless woods. He walked very rapidly,
looking neither to the right nor to the left, finding his way apparently
by an intuitive sense of direction. Occasionally he glanced back over
his shoulder and smiled.
Walking through the woods here was not difficult, and the party made
rapid progress. The huge, upstanding tree-trunks were devoid of limbs
for a hundred feet or more above the ground. On some of them a luxuriant
vine was growing--a vine that bore a profusion of little gray berries.
In the branches high overhead a few birds flew to and fro, calling out
at times with a soft, cooing note. The ground--a gray, finely powdered
sandy loam--was carpeted with bluish fallen leaves, sometimes with a
species of blue moss, and occasional ferns of a like color.
The forest was dense, deep, and silent; the tree branches overhead
locked together in a solid canopy, shutting out the black sky above. Yet
even in this seclusion the scene remained as light as it had been
outside the woods in the open. Darkness indeed was impossible in this
land; under all circumstances the light seemed the same--neither too
bright nor too dim--a comfortable, steady glow, restful, almost hypnotic
in its sameness.
They had traveled perhaps six miles from the point where they met their
Oroid guide when suddenly the Very Young Man became aware that other
Oroids were with them. Looking to one side, he saw two more of these
strange gray men, silently stalking along, keeping pace with them.
Turning, he made out still another, following a short distance behind.
The Very Young Man was startled, and hurriedly pointed them out to his
companions.
"Wait," called the Doctor to their youthful guide, and abruptly the
party came to a halt.
By these signs they made their guide understand that they wanted these
other men to come closer. The Oroid shouted to them in his own quaint
tongue, words of a soft, liquid quality with a wistful sound--words
wholly unintelligible to the adventurers.
The men came forward diffidently, six of them, for three others appeared
out of the shadows of the forest, and stood in a group, talking among
themselves a little and smiling at their visitors. They were all dressed
similarly to Lao--for such was the young Oroid's name--and all of them
older than he, and of nearly the same height.
"Do any of you speak English?" asked the Doctor, addressing them
directly.
Evidently they did not, for they answered only by shaking their heads
and by more smiles.
Then one of them spoke. "The Master welcomes his friends," he said. And
all the others repeated it after him, like children in school repeating
proudly a lesson newly learned.
The Doctor and his two friends laughed heartily, and, completely
reassured by this exhibition of their friendliness, they signified to
Lao that they were ready again to go forward.
As they walked onward through the apparently endless and unchanging
forest, surrounded by what the Very Young Man called their "guard of
honor," they were joined from time to time by other Oroid men, all of
whom seemed to know who they were and where they were going, and who
fell silently into line with them. Within an hour their party numbered
twenty or more.
Seeing one of the natives stop a moment and snatch some berries from one
of the vines with which many of the trees were encumbered, the Very
Young Man did the same. He found the berries sweet and palatable, and he
ate a quantity. Then discovering he was hungry, he took some crackers
from his belt and ate them walking along. The Doctor and the Big
Business Man ate also, for although they had not realized it, all three
were actually famished.
Shortly after this the party came to a broad, smooth-flowing river, its
banks lined with rushes, with here and there a little spot of gray,
sandy beach. It was apparent from Lao's signs that they must wait at
this point for a boat to take them across. This they were glad enough to
do, for all three had gone nearly to the limit of their strength. They
drank deep of the pure river water, laved their aching limbs in it
gratefully, and lay down, caring not a bit how long they were forced to
wait.
In perhaps another hour the boat appeared. It came from down the river,
propelled close inshore by two members of their own party who had gone
to fetch it. At first the travelers thought it a long, oblong raft. Then
as it came closer they could see it was constructed of three canoes,
each about thirty feet long, hollowed out of tree-trunks. Over these was
laid a platform of small trees hewn roughly into boards. The boat was
propelled by long, slender poles in the hands of the two men, who, one
on each side, dug them into the bed of the river and walked with them
the length of the platform.
On to this boat the entire party crowded and they were soon well out on
the shallow river, headed for its opposite bank. The Very Young Man,
seated at the front end of the platform with his legs dangling over and
his feet only a few inches above the silver phosphorescence of the
rippling water underneath, sighed luxuriously.
"This beats anything we've done yet," he murmured. "Gee, it's nice
here!"
When they landed on the farther bank another group of natives was
waiting for them. The party, thus strengthened to nearly forty, started
off immediately into the forest, which on this side of the river
appeared equally dense and trackless.
They appeared now to be paralleling the course of the river a few
hundred yards back from its bank. After half an hour of this traveling
they came abruptly to what at first appeared to be the mouth of a large
cave, but which afterwards proved to be a tunnel-like passageway. Into
this opening the party unhesitatingly plunged.
Within this tunnel, which sloped downward at a considerable angle, they
made even more rapid progress than in the forest above. The tunnel walls
here were perhaps twenty feet apart--walls of a glistening, radiant,
crystalline rock. The roof of the passageway was fully twice as high as
its width; its rocky floor was smooth and even.
After a time this tunnel was crossed by another somewhat broader and
higher, but in general of similar aspect. It, too, sloped downward, more
abruptly from the intersection. Into this latter passageway the party
turned, still taking the downward course.
As they progressed, many other passageways were crossed, the
intersections of which were wide at the open spaces. Occasionally the
travelers encountered other natives, all of them men, most of whom
turned and followed them.
The Big Business Man, after over an hour of this rapid walking downward,
was again near the limit of his endurance, when the party, after
crossing a broad, open square, came upon a sort of sleigh, with two
animals harnessed to it. It was standing at the intersection of a still
broader, evidently more traveled passageway, and in it was an attendant,
apparently fast asleep.
Into this sleigh climbed the three travelers with their guide Lao; and,
driven by the attendant, they started down the broader tunnel at a rapid
pace. The sleigh was balanced upon a broad single runner of polished
stone, with a narrow, slightly shorter outrider on each side; it slid
smoothly and easily on this runner over the equally smooth, metallic
rock of the ground.
The reindeer-like animals were harnessed by their heads to a single
shaft. They were guided by a short, pointed pole in the hands of the
driver, who, as occasion demanded, dug it vigorously into their flanks.
In this manner the travelers rode perhaps half an hour more. The
passageway sloped steeply downward, and they made good speed. Finally
without warning, except by a sudden freshening of the air, they emerged
into the open, and found themselves facing a broad, rolling stretch of
country, dotted here and there with trees--the country of the Oroids at
last.
For the first time since leaving their own world the adventurers found
themselves amid surroundings that at least held some semblance of an
aspect of familiarity. The scene they faced now might have been one of
their own land viewed on an abnormally bright though moonless evening.
For some miles they could see a rolling, open country, curving slightly
upward into the dimness of the distance. At their right, close by, lay a
broad lake, its surface wrinkled under a gentle breeze and gleaming
bright as a great sheet of polished silver.
Overhead hung a gray-blue, cloudless sky, studded with a myriad of
faint, twinkling, golden-silver stars. On the lake shore lay a
collection of houses, close together, at the water's edge and spreading
back thinly into the hills behind. This they knew to be Arite--the city
of their destination.
At the end of the tunnel they left the sleigh, and, turning down the
gentle sloping hillside, leisurely approached the city. They were part
way across an open field separating them from the nearest houses, when
they saw a group of figures coming across the field towards them. This
group stopped when still a few hundred yards away, only two of the
figures continuing to come forward. They came onward steadily, the tall
figure of a man clothed in white, and by his side a slender, graceful
boy.
In a moment more Lao, walking in front of the Doctor and his two
companions, stopped suddenly and, turning to face them, said quietly,
"The Master."
The three travelers, with their hearts pounding, paused an instant. Then
with a shout the Very Young Man dashed forward, followed by his two
companions.
"It's Rogers--it's Rogers!" he called; and in a moment more the three
men were beside the Chemist, shaking his hand and pouring at him
excitedly their words of greeting.
The Chemist welcomed them heartily, but with a quiet, curious air of
dignity that they did not remember he possessed before. He seemed to
have aged considerably since they had last seen him. The lines in his
face had deepened; the hair on his temples was white. He seemed also to
be rather taller than they remembered him, and certainly he was stouter.
He was dressed in a long, flowing robe of white cloth, gathered in at
the waist by a girdle, from which hung a short sword, apparently of gold
or of beaten brass. His legs were bare; on his feet he wore a form of
sandal with leather thongs crossing his insteps. His hair grew long over
his ears and was cut off at the shoulder line in the fashion of the
natives.
When the first words of greeting were over, the Chemist turned to the
boy, who was standing apart, watching them with big, interested eyes.
"My friends," he said quietly, yet with a little underlying note of
pride in his voice, "this is my son."
The boy approached deferentially. He was apparently about ten or eleven
years of age, tall as his father's shoulder nearly, extremely slight of
build, yet with a body perfectly proportioned. He was dressed in a white
robe similar to his father's, only shorter, ending at his knees. His
skin was of a curious, smooth, milky whiteness, lacking the gray, harder
look of that of the native men, and with just a touch of the iridescent
quality possessed by the women. His features were cast in a delicate
mold, pretty enough almost to be called girlish, yet with a firm
squareness of chin distinctly masculine.
His eyes were blue; his thick, wavy hair, falling to his shoulders, was
a chestnut brown. His demeanor was graceful and dignified, yet with a
touch of ingenuousness that marked him for the care-free child he really
was. He held out his hands palms up as he approached.
"My name is Loto," he said in a sweet, soft voice, with perfect
self-possession. "I'm glad to meet my father's friends." He spoke
English with just a trace of the liquid quality that characterized his
mother's tongue.
"You are late getting here," remarked the Chemist with a smile, as the
three travelers, completely surprised by this sudden introduction,
gravely shook hands with the boy.
During this time the young Oroid who had guided them down from the
forest above the tunnels, had been standing respectfully behind them, a
few feet away. A short distance farther on several small groups of
natives were gathered, watching the strangers. With a few swift words
Loto now dismissed their guide, who bowed low with his hands to his
forehead and left them.
Led by the Chemist, they continued on down into the city, talking
earnestly, telling him the details of their trip. The natives followed
them as they moved forward, and as they entered the city others looked
at them curiously and, the Very Young Man thought, with a little
hostility, yet always from a respectful distance. Evidently it was
night, or at least the time of sleep at this hour, for the streets they
passed through were nearly deserted.