"Then we are lost?"
"I am afraid so. I am sorry, Duare; I was so sure that we would find
the Sofal and that you would soon be out of danger. It is all my fault,
the fault of my stupidity and ignorance."
"Do not say that; no one could have known the direction he was going
during the darkness of last night. Perhaps we shall find the sea yet."
"Even if we could, I am afraid that it will be too late to insure your
safety."
"What do you mean--that the Sofal will be gone?" she asked.
"There is that danger, of course; but what I most fear is that we may
be recaptured by the Thorists. They will certainly search along the
coast for us in the locality where they found us yesterday. They are
not so stupid as not to guess that we will try to reach the Sofal."
"If we can find the ocean, we might hide from them," she suggested,
"until they tire of the search and return to Kapdor; then, if the Sofal
is still there, we may yet be saved."
"And if not, what?" I asked. "Do you know anything about Noobol? Is
there not some likelihood that we may find a friendly people somewhere
in this land who will aid us to reach Vepaja again?"
She shook her head. "I know little about Noobol," she replied, "but
what little I have heard is not good. It is a sparsely settled land
reaching, it is supposed, far into Strabol, the hot country, where no
man may live. It is filled with wild beasts and savage tribes. There
are scattered settlements along the coast, but most of these have been
captured or reduced by the Thorists; the others, of course, would be
equally dangerous, for the inhabitants would consider all strangers as
enemies."
"The outlook is not bright," I admitted, "but we will not give up; we
will find a way."
"If any man can, I am sure that it is you," she said.
Praise from Duare was sweet. In all the time that I had known her she
had said only one other kind thing to me, and later she had retracted
that.
"I could work miracles if only you loved me, Duare."
She straightened haughtily. "You will not speak of that," she said.
"Why do you hate me, Duare, who have given you only love?" I demanded.
"I do not hate you," she replied, "but you must not speak of love to
the daughter of a jong. We may be together for a long time, and you
must remember that I may not listen to love from the lips of any man.
Our very speaking together is a sin, but circumstances have made it
impossible to do otherwise.
"Before I was stolen from the house of the jong no man had ever
addressed me other than the members of my own family, except a few
loyal and privileged members of my father's household, and until I
should be twenty it were a sin in me and a crime in any man who should
disregard this ancient law of the royal families of Amtor."
"You forget," I reminded her, "that one man did address you in the
house of your father."
"An impudent knave," she said, "who should have died for his temerity."
"Yet you did not inform on me."
"Which made me equally guilty with you," she replied, flushing. "It is
a shameful secret that will abide with me until my death."
"A glorious memory that will always sustain my hope," I told her.
"A false hope that you would do well to kill," she said, and then, "Why
did you remind me of that day?" she demanded. "When I think of it, I
hate you; and I do not want to hate you."
"That is something," I suggested.
"Your effrontery and your hope feed on meager fare."
"Which reminds me that it might be well for me to see if I can find
something in the way of food for our bodies, too."
"There may be game in that forest," she suggested, indicating the wood
toward which we had been moving.
"We'll have a look," I said, "and then turn back and search for the
elusive sea."
* * * * *
A Venusan forest is a gorgeous sight. The foliage itself is rather
pale--orchid, heliotrope and violet predominate--but the boles of the
trees are gorgeous. They are of brilliant colors and often so glossy as
to give the impression of having been lacquered.
The wood we were approaching was of the smaller varieties of trees,
ranging in height from two hundred to three hundred feet, and in
diameter from twenty to thirty feet. There were none of the colossi of
the island of Vepaja that reared their heads upward five thousand feet
to penetrate the eternal inner cloud envelope of the planet.
The interior of the forest was illuminated by the mysterious Venusan
ground glow, so that, unlike an earthly forest of similar magnitude
upon a cloudy day, it was far from dark or gloomy. Yet there was
something sinister about it. I cannot explain just what, nor why it
should have been.
"I do not like this place," said Duare, with a little shudder; "there
is no sight of animal, no sound of bird."
"Perhaps we frightened them away," I suggested.
"I do not think so; it is more likely that there is something else in
the forest that has frightened them."
I shrugged. "Nevertheless, we must have food," I reminded her, and I
continued on into the forbidding, and at the same time gorgeous, wood
that reminded me of a beautiful but wicked woman.
Several times I thought I saw a suggestion of movement among the boles
of distant trees, but when I reached them there was nothing there. And
so I pressed on, deeper and deeper; and constantly a sense of impending
evil grew stronger as I advanced.
"There!" whispered Duare suddenly, pointing. "There is something there,
behind that tree. I saw it move."
Something, just glimpsed from the corner of my eye, caught my attention
to the left of us; and as I turned quickly in that direction something
else dodged behind the bole of a large tree.