THE ESCAPE
It is the habit of mankind to depreciate the appliances of its
ancestors, when it has superseded them with other contrivances. In our
time, bows and arrows have become symbolic of futility among engines of
war. Yet, before the introduction of gunpowder, the longbow was
considered a weapon sufficiently formidable to threaten the whole order
of feudalism, and it is at least doubtful whether stupidity alone, or a
deliberate purpose, exposed the archers at Bannockburn, without the
usual support of pikemen, to the charge of the Scottish horse.
It is certainly true that a company of Crécy archers would have quickly
cleared more than one of the Flanders trenches, which were too near for
comfort, yet too far for a grenade to reach them, and too deep for the
trajectory of a bullet.
We had talked and slept and talked again as the long night continued,
and had not noticed the first faint light that came slowly from a sun
that rose to so prolonged a dawn, till the arrow fell rattling on the
floor beside us.
My companion laughed as it fell--not with her lips, that only opening
slightly for a breathing which it seemed no haste could quicken, nor
with her eyes, to my knowing, for it was too dark to see them, though
they must have been alight with the joy of unfamiliar action, but with
her mind, through which the laughter and its cause were conveyed
together, and by which means mirth, though amid a crowd of others, could
be private to those who shared it.
Our thought was single that we should go back to our first station
beneath the door, where we supposed we should be safe from the arrows.
She rose lightly--another shaft striking the place where she had lain,
as she left it--and slowly and stiffly, from my long vigil, I followed
her. She was becoming used to the frequent evidences of the
imperfections of my physical existence, but this exhibition stirred her
to a fresh wonder. “Didn’t it know,” she asked, “that you wanted to get
up quickly? Is it insubordinate, or entirely stupid?” I defended it as I
could, “I think it does its best for me, in its own way. I have used it
very hardly of late, and it needs repair; within a few minutes, when it
understands that it must work again, it will be ready. Did it never
protest, I should use it beyond its capacity, and soon destroy it. But
perhaps if you had come to my world, you would have found your own body
less perfectly adapted to more strange conditions than you find here.”
She answered frankly, “It is likely enough. Though I should at least
know what was happening. You seem to me to live in yours like a
stranger, without control or confidence, and not knowing what goes on
within it.
“But I agree with you the more easily because I am already feeling the
need of the water in which I most naturally live, and I am also
conscious of the loss of the energy I have given you, which, in about
two months from now, should it continue at the same rate, would exhaust
me entirely.”
As this thought reached me, we were moving down the centre of the hall,
she in front, because she was confident that her will could turn a shaft
if it were coming directly at her. Suddenly I saw her bulk more broadly
in the dim light, and was sharply startled, till her thought assisted my
eyes to explain it. She had lifted and shaken loose her fur, which was
of a surprising length, and then drawn it down again more closely than
ever, so that its surface was as smooth and shining as a serpent’s skin.
I had an impulse to lay my hand on the glossy back, but dare not break
the barrier of her physical difference and aloofness. It was as though
an unapproachable virginity surrounded her. I vaguely realised the power
by which she could control the fiercest creatures of the deep, and how
they felt as they cowered before her.
If she understood my thought, she gave no sign, but went on to tell me,
“In the ocean are many springs, some that are hot, and some that are
very cold, where we can lie with lifted fur, and let the water go
through it. Here I can only shake it loose, and every hair is too
sensitive to rest content if any speck of dust be upon it, especially of
organic origin, for they dread corruption in any form.”
We were two-thirds down the floor by now, and she was stepping
delicately to avoid the body of the Killer, which had spilled across it,
when an arrow passed us, and the next moment I was struck sharply behind
the shoulder so that I staggered and recovered myself with difficulty.
“I’ve got it now,” I thought, for there was a dull pain under my
shoulder-blade, and I was aware of a feathered shaft that projected
behind me, but her mind only laughed in answer.
“It isn’t easy to tell where your body begins or ends, but I don’t think
that arrow’s hurt you.”
She was right. It had entered the knapsack in a downward direction,
pierced a variety of its contents, and then been deflected by a
burning-glass which I had brought in case my small stock of matches
should be exhausted--but so far I had had no occasion to use it. Now it
projected three inches from the lower corner of the knapsack, a narrow,
steel-like, unbarbed head, of razor sharpness.
But how had it struck me there?
We crouched with our backs to the barred door, and watched and
understood.
The walls and ceiling were of the same substance as the door that had
turned my axe-edge, and the shafts that struck them fairly rebounded,
but they were shooting now so that the shafts glanced from the roof, and
then did diabolic turns, like the wizardry of billiard balls when a
master guides them. Whether there were any quality of an unfamiliar kind
in shaft or ceiling I cannot say, but such shooting I had never seen, or
imagined.
Fortunately for us the side walls were still hung with enough weapons to
make such jugglery difficult upon them--(the end was bare like the
ceiling)--and the floor was scattered with those I had brought down in
my chase of the Killer.
“Unless you have something better to suggest than sitting here, we shall
probably be in the stewing-vats before sunset,” my comrade considered
judicially, as a shaft slanted across us at about two feet distance.
“I am of the same mind,” I answered amiably, “but what can we do? I
might send one arrow from the window. I should probably aim too hastily
to hit anyone. I should not be likely to send a second. We can unbar the
door, but we cannot open it. We could ask your Leader to do so, if she
can escape from her present confinement, but the moment seems
inopportune. Can you get in touch with her, and learn what is happening
outside?”
In response to this suggestion she established communication almost at
once, and was soon passing on the report to me.
“There are two archers shooting. The one you hit is hurt in the head,
but only slightly. The smaller Killers have gone to the farther side,
and are out of view. The very old, the diseased, and the young, are
congregated together at the far end of the enclosure. The infirm archer
is with them, but he was consulted by the others, and it seemed that he
gave them the plan of attack which they are following.
“There is a young one of the larger kind who is turning somersaults in
excitement, because he hopes that the older may be killed, and he will
be able to obtain a bow.
“They suppose that the arrows have destroyed you already, but they are
cautious, and will continue to shoot till their ammunition is ended. The
smaller Killers, who have gone round to the side, are well provided with
strangling-cords, and have also many javelins. They have fetched a
quantity from one of the other buildings. They are elaborately made, and
have red shafts. Probably they were of a sacred or ornamental character,
and have been acquired for fighting purposes only in this emergency.
“The javelins are not dangerous to you at present, as they turn in the
air when thrown, and the window bars are too narrow for them to pass.
“There is no guard here now, and the bat-winged victims are greatly
excited by the hope of escape, but they appear to have no means of
releasing themselves.... I think the arrows are ended.”
We thought so too, for they had now ceased to enter. If our enemies
hoped or supposed that we had been disabled, they must advance to
investigate, and I had the sense of relief which comes when you can at
last strike back, after being exposed to an attack which there is no
means of resisting. I had a moment’s inclination to unbar the door, and
rush out upon them when they pushed it open, with such axe-blows as
might scatter them, and win our freedom at a moment.
I had the thought that if the archers could be cut down, the rest would
be panic-stricken to see it, and that without their bows they might not
be very formidable, but the recollection of the strangling-cords was
enough to check this impulse effectually.
Then I thought that if they expected that they had killed us, they would
not suppose that the door had been unbarred, and how would they
endeavour to enter?
The light had increased now, so that the whole extent of the hall was
visible. It showed nothing that we had not already seen or imagined,
except that in the roof there were slits of an oblong shape, and of a
regular occurrence, and over the sides of these we saw the heads of
small lizard-like creatures protruding--bright yellow, snout-like heads,
with small emerald eyes, that watched us fearfully, but with an
impression of malevolence, and of an intelligence that gave me a feeling
of actual discomfort as I gazed, so that I looked elsewhere, and then
remembered how an animal will turn uneasily from a man’s eyes, and was
ashamed, and looked back, and found my gaze was reluctant.
My comrade followed my thought, and surveyed them with her usual
coolness. “They are more intelligent than the Killers, of whom they are
not afraid. The Killers serve them. They must have built that roof for
their dwelling. They fear us, and therefore hate us. It might be well if
you sent an arrow to frighten them.”
But as the thought came, the yellow heads shot back, and the openings
were quiet and vacant.
“I thought so,” she smiled, “they can read our thoughts, while they
watch us. They are dangerous and might do us mischief, but I think the
Killers are too stupid to use them.”
Meanwhile, I had again secured the bow, which I had used the night
before with such unmerited success.
When I had drawn it once or twice, and felt that I could control it to
some purpose, though it was almost beyond my strength to handle, I
stepped to one of the windows on a sudden impulse, and saw the ground
before me was pink with advancing Killers. Swiftly and silently they
came, having appeared again from the side which had hidden them from the
sight of our Leader. There was no whistling from the suckers, but they
were waving them from right to left, and tossing them in the air in
their excitement, as does an elephant when he trumpets. Many of them had
the red-stemmed javelins. All had their strangling-cords in readiness.
The archers moved beside them, one on each flank, bow in hand, but I saw
that there were no arrows on the strings.
There was no need to aim. I bent the bow to my strength’s limit, and
sent the long shaft into the hideous crowd that confronted me. I think
that it might only have dented the slimy bladder-like skin of the first
it struck, without puncturing it, had it been able to throw him back
without striking any solid substance behind him, but--perhaps because
they were advancing so closely--it went through him and two others
before it spent its force, and left them heaped and squealing. In a
moment the whistling cries arose to a point which I cannot hope to tell,
for I lack words for any possible comparison. Right and left ran the
Killers, the archers first in flight, and in a few seconds were beyond
my range and seeing, beneath the side walls of the arsenal that was at
once our jail and our safety.
My comrade, looking from the other window, gazed at the stricken,
struggling heap with eyes that danced in triumph. Her age-long wandering
in the ocean ways had familiarised her to death and cruelty in a hundred
forms. Her repugnance had been to doing things herself which she
regarded as natural only to a lower order of creation. I suppose in all
her life she had never knowingly done harm to any sentient thing. But
she loved adventure as a child loves it.
Then her eyes clouded to an instant’s blankness, and turned to me again,
and this was the thought she gave.
“My Leader says, ‘Tell that animal not to shoot again, and if it does
so, leave it entirely. We are not Killers, nor do we practise their
ways. Besides, it may cause trouble with the Dwellers, of which we have
prepared sufficient already.’”
I answered in anger at such perversity. “Tell her that if she is not a
Killer, neither am I an Amphibian, and I shall play this game in my own
way.”
“But she is a Leader----”
“She is not mine. Tell her I have the authority of five Leaders, and she
had better do as she is told herself.”
“She says that she has already loosed a bar from the floor, and is
coming herself to take direction.”
“Tell her that if we open the door to let her in we shall have to keep
it open, and how then shall we resist them? If we close it, who will be
left outside to open it, when we are ready? Tell her to stay where she
is.”
“Be quiet, please. She has dived in the boiling tank. We must not divert
her mind. She dare not look nor breathe. Now she has reached the outer
tank. It is worse than she expected, and she is very nearly exhausted.
She has risen to the surface and is looking through the steam for a
place to land. There are Killers on that side. She will dive again, and
swim under the killing-sheds so that she may reach the farther side
before they can run round. You must help her with such will as you have.
She has risen. But it is too soon. There’s a floor above her head, in
the water. She is swimming on. She has struck something under water. It
is one of the boiling bodies. It is a Frog-mouth. It is not quite dead.
It has seized her with its teeth. Now she has willed herself free. She
has risen to the surface. She can breathe, but she can only swim very
slowly. She is exhausted, and she is holding one arm out of the water.
It has been burnt by the water where she was bitten. She is at the edge
now, but the Killers are there also. There are only three yet, and their
wills are not strong enough to resist her. They are confused and
frightened in mind. One has tried to push her back, striking with a
javelin. She has caught it in her hand. He has fallen into the water. I
have not heard one of them squeal quite like that before. She has pulled
him out again, but he is still squealing. I think he will die. More
Killers are coming. She is running here. She says, ‘Have the door
unbarred.’”
I lifted the bars down, though I was far from sure of the wisdom of
opening. Then I went to the window. She was already in view, running at
a great pace, but with an ease and coolness that gave no impression of
being hunted, but rather of one who constrained others to follow. I
cannot easily convey the feeling that came to my mind as I watched her.
They were too far behind to throw to any good purpose.
But round the side of the building from which I watched came another
crowd, forgetful of arrows in their excitement, and were between her and
the door in a moment.
“She says, do not shoot. She will draw them off, and then return to the
door, and I must be ready to run out with her. They will then try to cut
us off from the gate, but we shall make for the cliff behind, and climb
it, and go to meet our companions. She says I can bring you if I will,
and if you can climb.”
I answered, “I cannot climb that cliff. No man could.”
“She says, we must go that way. It is necessary. The animals can go on
killing each other if they will. She will have none of it.”
I said, “Tell her I did not come here for my own pleasure, but to help
her. If she does not need my help she can go her own way, and you can
choose for yourself also. I am not going to lose the chance of giving
these brutes another lesson.”
All these thoughts exchanged in less time than it will take to read
them, and even while my comrade answered, with a troubled mind, “She is
a Leader. She will do right. Do not shoot.” I had already sent a shaft
among them which found its victim, and this I followed with another
which went weakly astray as they turned and fled to safety.
The Amphibian, who had first taken a sideward leap to avoid their rush,
was already moving away to draw them off the door, but seeing the effect
of my shot she ran swiftly forward and pushed it open, and entered.
She stood there, holding the door open with her right hand--the left
arm, which had been bitten and then scalded in the water, hanging
loosely beside her--with a quiet dignity, which I could not but respect,
however much I might resent her attitude to myself. She did not turn her
eyes to me, nor give me a thought--she never did this from first to
last--and I was conscious that there was no anger in her mind. I was too
far beneath her.
She looked at the inside of the door for a moment, and then I was aware
that their minds were in contact. Thought is swift, but it seemed a long
time that we stood there. I was conscious that my comrade was fighting
for her own will, and was, in a way, defying her Leader, if defiance it
could be called, where I knew that both minds retained their poise and
coolness, and the one that heard was both aloof and judicial.
At last she asked me, “Are you content that I go with her, and can you
escape by the way we came?”
I replied, “You must make your own choice,” and closed my mind very
quickly. I was angered at the course that events had taken, and in no
mood to let her know that I was at an extremity of exhaustion. As I drew
the bow the second time I knew that it was my own giddiness that made
the shaft go wrong. I was standing upright with difficulty, and knew
that if we separated there was not one chance in a thousand that I
should escape the handling of those nauseous suckers.
Her mind fought for a moment to pierce the blankness with which I met
it. Then it recognised its failure. “Wait,” she answered. “I have a
thought,” and again she turned to her Leader, and a longer silence
followed.
At last she turned to me, and relief of some kind gave light to the
serenity of her eyes. “She goes. I stay with you. How long depends on
yourself. But it is a condition that I must not explain.”
I was so gladdened by this decision that I was disposed to be generous.
“I am very glad,” I answered, “unless it will expose you to greater
danger than you would otherwise meet. But I hope I have not been the
cause of any difference between you and your Leader, who so plainly
dislikes me.”
She answered coldly, “I am in no danger that I fear to meet. We are not
animals such as you are. Nor do we differ among ourselves. Our Leaders
are always right.”
As she gave me this thought, her Leader looked at me for the first time.
I thought there was inquiry in her glance, but it passed me dumbly. She
threw a thought to my companion, “You should watch the floor,” and
turned and went out, and the door closed behind her, with the click
which had sounded so ominously in the night when I first heard it.