"I am honored by being included among your friends."
"But are you not my best, my only friend now in all Amtor?"
I had to admit that her reasoning was sound, since as far as all the
rest of Amtor was concerned we were the only two people on that
cloud-girt planet, and we were certainly not enemies.
* * * * *
We were moving cautiously along within sight of the river when Nalte
suddenly touched my arm and pointed toward the opposite bank, at the
same time dragging me down behind a shrub.
Just opposite us a corpse had washed ashore; and a short distance
below, two others. They were our pursuers. As we watched, they slowly
crawled to their feet; then the one we had first seen called to the
others, who presently joined him. The three corpses talked together,
pointing and gesticulating. It was horrible. I felt my skin creep.
What would they do? Would they continue the search or would they return
to the castle? If the former, they would have to cross the river; and
they must already have learned that there was little likelihood of
their being able to do that. But that was attributing to dead brains
the power to reason! It seemed incredible. I asked Nalte what she
thought about it.
"It is a mystery to me," she replied. "They converse, and they appear
to reason. At first I thought they were motivated through the hypnotic
influence of Skor's mind solely--that they thought his thoughts, as it
were; but they take independent action when Skor is away, as you have
seen them do to-day, which refutes that theory. Skor says that they do
reason. He has stimulated their nervous systems into the semblance of
life, though no blood flows in their veins; but the past experiences
of their lives before they died are less potent in influencing their
judgments than the new system of conduct and ethics that Skor has
instilled into their dead brains. He admits that the specimens he has
at the castle are very dull; but that, he insists, is because they were
dull people in life."
The dead men conversed for some time and then started slowly up river
in the direction of the castle, and it was with a sigh of relief that
we saw them disappear.
"Now we must try to find a good place to cross," I said. "I wish
to search the other side for some sign of Duare. She must have left
footprints in the soft earth."
"There is a ford somewhere down river," said Nalte. "When Skor captured
me we crossed it on our way to the castle. I do not know just where it
is, but it cannot be far."
We had descended the river some two miles from the point at which we
had seen the dead man emerge upon the opposite bank, without seeing
any sign of a crossing, when I heard faintly a familiar cackling that
seemed to come from across the river and farther down.
"Do you hear that?" I asked Nalte.
She listened intently for a moment as the cackling grew louder. "Yes,"
she replied--"the kazars. We had better hide."
* * * * *
Acting upon Nalte's suggestion we concealed ourselves behind a clump of
underbrush and waited. The cackling grew in volume, and we knew that
the kazars were approaching.
"Do you suppose that it is Skor's pack?" I asked.
"It must be," she replied. "There is no other pack in this vicinity,
according to Skor."
"Nor any wild kazars?"
"No. He says that there are no wild ones on this side of the big river.
They range on the opposite side. These must be Skor's!"
We waited in silence as the sounds approached, and presently we saw
the new leader of the pack trot into view on the opposite bank.
Behind him strung several more of the grotesque beasts, and then came
Skor, mounted on his zorat, with the dead men that formed his retinue
surrounding him.
"Duare is not there!" whispered Nalte. "Skor did not recapture her."
We watched Skor and his party until they had passed out of sight among
the trees of the forest on the other side of the river, and it was with
a sigh of relief that I saw what I hoped would be the last of the jong
of Morov.
While I was relieved to know that Duare had not been recaptured, I was
still but little less apprehensive concerning her fate. Many dangers
might beset her, alone and unprotected in this savage land; and I had
only the vaguest conception of where to search for her.
After the passing of Skor we had continued on down the river, and
presently Nalte pointed ahead to a line of ripples that stretched from
bank to bank where the river widened.
"There is the ford," she said, "but there is no use crossing it to look
for Duare's trail. If she had escaped on that side of the river the
kazars would have found her before now. The fact that they didn't find
her is fairly good proof that she was never over there."
I was not so sure of that. I did not know that Duare could swim nor
that she could not, but the chances were highly in favor of the latter
possibility, since Duare had been born and reared in the tree-city of
Kooaad.
"Perhaps they found her and killed her," I suggested, horrified at the
very thought of such a tragedy.
"No," dissented Nalte. "Skor would have prevented that; he wanted her."
"But something else might have killed her; they might have found her
dead body."
"Skor would have brought it back with him and invested it with the
synthetic life that animates his retinue of dead," argued Nalte.
Still I was not convinced. "How do the kazars trail?" I asked. "Do they
follow the spoor of their quarry by scent?"
Nalte shook her head. "Their sense of smell is extremely poor, but
their vision is acute. In trailing, they depend wholly upon their eyes."
"Then it is possible that they might not have crossed Duare's trail at
all and so missed her."
"Possible, but not probable," replied Nalte. "What is more probable is
that she was killed and devoured by some beast before Skor was able to
recapture her."
That explanation had already occurred to me, but I did not wish to even
think about it. "Nevertheless," I said, "we might as well cross over to
the other bank. If we are going to follow the big river down stream we
shall have to cross this affluent sooner or later, and we may not find
another ford as it grows broader and deeper toward its mouth."
* * * * *
The ford was broad and well marked by ripples, so we had no difficulty
in following it toward the opposite bank. However, we were compelled to
keep our eyes on the water most of the time as the ford took two curves
that formed a flattened S, and it would have been quite easy to have
stepped off into deep water and been swept down stream had we not been
careful.
The result of our constant watchfulness approached disaster as we
neared the left bank of the stream. The merest chance caused me to
look up. I was slightly in advance of Nalte as we walked hand in hand
for greater safety. I stopped so suddenly at what I saw that the girl
bumped into me. Then she looked up, and a little, involuntary cry of
alarm burst from her lips.
"What are they?" she asked.
"I don't know," I replied. "Don't you?"
"No; I never saw such creatures before."
At the edge of the water, awaiting us, were half a dozen man-like
creatures, while others like them were coming from the forest, dropping
from the trees to shuffle awkwardly toward the ford. They were about
three feet tall and entirely covered with long hair. At first I thought
that they were monkeys, although they bore a startling resemblance to
human beings, but when they saw that we had discovered them one of them
spoke, and the simian theory was exploded.
"I am Ul," said the speaker. "Go away from the land of Ul. I am Ul; I
kill!"
"We will not harm you," I replied. "We only want to pass through your
country."
"Go away!" growled Ul, baring sharp fighting fangs.
By now, fifty of the fierce little men were gathered at the water's
edge, growling, menacing. They were without clothing or ornaments and
carried no weapons, but their sharp fangs and the bulging muscles
of their shoulders and arms bespoke their ability to carry out Ul's
threats.
"What are we going to do?" demanded Nalte. "They will tear us to pieces
the moment we step out of the water."
"Perhaps I can persuade them to let us pass," I said, but after five
minutes of fruitless effort I had to admit defeat. Ul's only reply to
my arguments was, "Go away! I kill! I kill!"
I hated to turn back, for I knew that we must cross the river
eventually and we might not find such another crossing, but at last,
reluctantly, I retraced my steps to the right bank hand in hand with
Nalte.
All the remainder of the day I searched for traces of Duare as we
followed the course of the river downward, but my efforts were without
success. I was disheartened. I felt that I should never see her again.
Nalte tried to cheer me up, but inasmuch as she believed that Duare was
dead she was not very successful.
Late in the afternoon I succeeded in killing a small animal. As we had
eaten nothing all that day we were both famished, so we soon had a fire
going and were grilling cuts of the tender meat.
After we had eaten I built a rude platform among the branches of a
large tree and gathered a number of huge leaves to serve as mattress
and covering, and as darkness fell Nalte and I settled ourselves, not
uncomfortably, in our lofty sanctuary.
* * * * *
For a while we were silent, wrapped in our own thoughts. I do not know
about Nalte's, but mine were gloomy enough. I cursed the day that I had
conceived the idea to build the huge torpedo that had carried me from
Earth to Venus, and in the next thought I blessed it because it had
made it possible for me to know and to love Duare.
It was Nalte who broke the silence. As though she had read my thoughts,
she said, "You loved Duare very much?"
"Yes," I replied.