AN EXODUS AND A BATTLE
Orthis, who was becoming the almost constant companion of the chief, was
standing beside the latter, while I was twenty-five or thirty yards
away, and directly between Ga-va-go and the warriors who were
approaching with the prisoner, who would of necessity have to pass close
beside me. I remained where I was, therefore, in order to get a better
look at it, which was rather difficult because it was almost entirely
surrounded by No-vans. However as they came opposite me, there was a
little break momentarily in the ranks, and I had my first opportunity,
though brief, for a closer observation of the captive; and my
comprehension was almost staggered by what my eyes revealed to me, for
there before me, was as perfectly formed a human female as I had ever
seen. By earthly standards, she appeared a girl of about eighteen, with
hair of glossy blackness, that suggested more the raven’s wing than
aught else and a skin of almost marble whiteness, slightly tinged with a
creamy shade. Only in the color of her skin, did she differ from earthly
women in appearance, except that she seemed far more beautiful than
they. Such perfection of features seemed almost unbelievable. Had I seen
her first posed motionless, I could have sworn that she was chiseled
from marble, yet there was nothing cold about her appearance. She fairly
radiated life and feeling. If my first impression had been startling, it
was nothing to the effect that was produced when she turned her eyes
full upon me. Her black brows were two thin, penciled arches, beneath
which were dark wells of light, vying in blackness with her raven hair.
On either cheek was just the faintest suggestion of a deeper cream, and
to think that these hideous creatures saw in that form divine only flesh
to eat! I shuddered at the thought and then my eyes met hers and I saw
an expression of incredulity and surprise registered in those liquid
orbs. She half-turned her head as she was dragged past, that she might
have a further look at me, for doubtless she was as surprised to see a
creature like me as I was to see her.
Involuntarily I started forward. Whether there was an appeal for succor
in those eyes I do not know, but at least they aroused within me
instantly, that natural instinct of a human male to protect the weak.
And so it was that I was a little behind her and to her right, when she
was halted before Ga-va-go.
The savage Va-gas’ chieftain eyed her coldly, while from all sides there
arose cries of “Give us flesh! Give us flesh! We are hungry!” to which
Ga-va-go paid not the slightest attention.
“From whence come you, U-ga?” he demanded.
Her head was high, and she eyed him with cold dignity as she replied,
“From Laythe.”
The No-van raised his brows. “Ah,” he breathed, “from Laythe. The flesh
of the women from Laythe is good,” and he licked his thin lips.
The girl narrowed her eyes, and tilted her chin a bit higher. “Rympth!”
she ejaculated, disgustedly.
As rympth is the name of the four-legged snake of Va-nah, the inner
lunar world, and considered the lowest and most disgusting of created
things, she could not well have applied a more opprobrious epithet to
the No-van chieftain, but if it had been her intent to affront him, his
expression gave no indication that she had succeeded.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Nah-ee-lah,” she replied.
“Nah-ee-lah,” he repeated, “Ah, you are the daughter of Sagroth, Jemadar
of Laythe.”
She nodded in indifferent affirmation, as though aught he might say was
a matter of perfect indifference to her.
“What do you expect us to do with you?” asked Ga-va-go, a question which
suggested a cat playing with a mouse before destroying it.
“What can I expect of the Va-gas, other than that they will kill me and
eat me?” she replied.
A roar of savage assent arose from the creatures surrounding her.
Ga-va-go flashed a quick look of anger and displeasure at his people.
“Do not be too sure of that,” he snapped. “This be little more than a
meal for Ga-va-go alone. It would but whet the appetite of the tribe.”
“There are two more,” suggested a bold warrior, close beside me,
pointing at me and at Orthis.
“Silence!” roared Ga-va-go. “Since when did you become chief of the
No-vans?”
“We can starve without a chief,” muttered the warrior who had spoken,
and from two or three about him arose grumblings of assent.
Swift, at that, Ga-va-go reared upon his hind feet, and in the same
motion, drew and hurled his spear, the sharp point penetrating the
breast of the malcontent, piercing his heart. As the creature fell, the
warrior closest to him slit his throat, while another withdrew
Ga-va-go’s spear from the corpse, and returned it to the chief.
“Divide the carcass among you,” commanded the chief, “and whosoever
thinks that there is not enough, let him speak as that one spoke, and
there shall be more flesh to eat.”
Thus did Ga-va-go, chief of the No-vans, hold the obedience of his
savage tribesmen. There was no more muttering then, but I saw several
cast hungry eyes at me—hungry, angry eyes that boded me no good.
In what seemed an incredibly short space of time, the carcass of the
slain warrior had been divided and devoured, and once again we set out
upon the march, in search of new fields to conquer, and fresh flesh to
eat.
Now Ga-va-go sent scouts far in advance of the point, for we were
entering territory which he had not invaded for a long time, a truth
which was evidenced by the fact that there were only about twenty
warriors in the tribe, besides Ga-va-go, who were at all familiar with
the territory. Naturally quarrelsome and disagreeable, the No-vans were
far from pleasant companions upon that memorable march, since they had
not recovered from the fright and discomforts of the storm and, in
addition, were ravenously hungry. I imagine that none, other than
Ga-va-go, could have held them. What his purpose was in preserving the
three prisoners, that would have made such excellent food for the tribe,
I did not know. However, we were not slain, though I judged the fellow
who carried me, would much sooner have eaten me, and to vent his spite
upon me he trotted as much as he could, and I can assure you that he had
the most devilishly execrable trot I ever sat. I felt that he was rather
running the thing into the ground, for he had an easy rack, which would
have made it much more comfortable for both of us, and inasmuch as I
knew that I was safe as long as I was under Ga-va-go’s protection, I
made up my mind to teach the fellow a lesson, which I finally did,
although almost as much to my discomfort as his, by making no effort to
ease myself upon his back so that at every step I rose high and came
down hard upon him, sitting as far back as possible so as to pound his
kidneys painfully. It made him very angry and he threatened me with all
kinds of things if I didn’t desist, but I only answered by suggesting
that he take an easier gait, which at last he was forced to do.
Orthis was riding ahead with Ga-va-go, who as usual led the point, while
the new prisoner astride a No-van warrior was with the main body, as was
I.
Once the warriors that we bestrode paced side by side, and I saw the
girl eyeing me questioningly. She seemed much interested in the remnants
of my uniform, which must have differed greatly from any clothing she
had seen in her own world. It seemed that she spoke and understood the
same language that Ga-va-go used, and so at last I made bold to address
her.
“It is unfortunate,” I said, “that you have fallen into the hands of
these creatures. I wish that I might be of service to you, but I also am
a prisoner.”
She acknowledged my speech with a slight inclination of her head, and at
first I thought that she was not going to reply, but finally looking me
full in the face she asked, “What are you?”
“I am one of the inhabitants of the planet Earth.”
“Where is that, and what is planet?” she asked, for I had had to use the
Earth word, since there is no word of similar meaning in the language of
the Va-gas.
“You know, of course,” I said, “that space outside of Va-nah is filled
with other worlds. The closest to Va-nah is Earth, which is many, many
times larger than your world. It is from Earth that I come.”
She shook her head. “I do not understand,” she said. She closed her
eyes, and waved her hands with a gesture that might have included the
universe. “All, all, is rock,” she said, “except here in the center of
everything, in this space we call Va-nah. All else is rock.”
I suppressed a smile at the vast egotism of Va-nah, but yet how little
different is it from many worldings, who conceive that the entire cosmos
exists solely for the inhabitants of Earth. I even know men in our own
enlightened twenty-first century, who insist that Mars is not inhabited
and that the messages that are purported to come from our sister planet,
are either the evidences of a great world hoax, or the voice of the
devil luring people from belief in the true God.
“Did you ever see my like in Va-nah?” I asked her.
“No,” she replied, “I never did, but I have not been to every part of
Va-nah. Va-nah is a very great world, and there are many corners of it
of which I know nothing.”
“I am not of Va-nah,” I told her again, “I am from another world far,
far away;” and then I tried to explain something of the universe to
her—of the sun and the planets and their satellites, but I saw that it
was as far beyond her as are the conceptions of eternity and space
beyond the finite mind of Earth Men. She simply couldn’t get it, that
was all. To her, everything was solid rock that we know as space. She
thought for a long time, though, and then she said, “Ah, perhaps after
all there may be other worlds than Va-nah. The great Hoos, those vast
holes that lead into the eternal rock, may open into other worlds like
Va-nah. I have heard that theory discussed, but no one in Va-nah
believes it. It is true, then!” she exclaimed brightly, “and you come
from another world like Va-nah. You came through one of the Hoos, did
you not?”
“Yes, I came through one of the Hoos,” I replied—the word means hole in
the Va-gas tongue—“but I did not come from a world like Va-nah. Here
you live upon the inside of a hollow sphere. We Earth Men live upon the
outside of a similar though much larger sphere.”
“But what holds it up?” she cried, laughing. It was the first time that
she had laughed, and it was a very contagious laugh, and altogether
delightful. Although I knew that it would probably be useless, I tried
to explain the whole thing to her, commencing with the nebular
hypothesis, and winding up with the relations that exist between the
Moon and the Earth. If I didn’t accomplish anything else, I at least
gave her something to distract her mind from her grave predicament, and
to amuse her temporarily, for she laughed often at some of my
statements. I had never seen so gay and vivacious a creature, nor one so
entirely beautiful as she. The single, sleeveless, tunic-like garment
that she wore, fell scarcely to her knees and as she bestrode the No-van
warrior, it often flew back until her thighs, even, were exposed. Her
figure was divinely perfect, its graceful contours being rather
accentuated than hidden by the diaphanous material of her dainty
covering; but when she laughed, she exposed two rows of even white teeth
that would be the envy of the most beautiful of Earth Maids.
“Suppose,” she said, “that I should take a handful of gravel and throw
it up in the air. According to your theory the smaller would all
commence to revolve about the larger and they would go flying thus
wildly around in the air forever, but that is not what would happen. If
I threw a handful of gravel into the air it would fall immediately to
the ground again, and if the worlds you tell me of were cast thus into
the air, they too would fall, just as the gravel falls.”
It was useless, but I had known that from the beginning. What would be
more interesting would be to question her, and that I had wished to do
for some time, but she always put me off with a pretty gesture and a
shake of her head, insisting that I answer some of her questions
instead, but this time I insisted.
“Tell me, please,” I asked, “how you came to the spot where you were
captured, how you flew, and what became of your wings, and why, when
they tore them from you, it did not injure you?”
She laughed at that quite merrily.
“The wings do not grow upon us,” she explained, “we make them and fasten
them upon our arms.”
“Then you can support yourself in the air with wings fastened to your
arms?” I demanded, incredulously.
“Oh, no,” she said, “the wings we use simply for propelling ourselves
through the air. In a bag, upon our backs, we carry a gas that is
lighter than air. It is this gas which supports us, and we carry it in
such quantities as to maintain a perfect equilibrium, so that we may
float at any altitude, or with our wings rise or fall gently; but as I
hovered over Laythe, came the air that runs, and seizing me with its
strong arms bore me off across the surface of Va-nah. Futilely I fought
against it until I was spent and weak, and then it dropped me into the
clutches of the Va-gas, for the gas in my bag had become depleted. It
was not intended to carry me aloft for any great length of time.”
She had used a word which, when I questioned her, she explained so that
I understood that it meant time, and I asked her what she meant by it
and how she could measure it, since I had seen no indication of the
Va-gas having any conception of a measurable aspect of duration.
Nah-ee-lah explained to me that the Va-gas, who were a lower order, had
no means of measuring time, but that the U-ga, the race to which she
belonged, had always been able to compute time through their observation
of the fact that during certain periods the bottoms of the hoos, or
craters, were illuminated, and for another period they were dark, and so
they took as a unit of measure the total period from the beginning of
this light in a certain crater to its beginning again, and this they
called a _ula_, which corresponds with a sidereal month. By mechanical
means they divide this into a hundred parts, called _ola_, the duration
of each of which is about six hours and thirty-two minutes earth time.
Ten _ulas_ make a _keld_, which one might call the lunar year of about
two hundred and seventy-two days earth time.
I asked her many questions and took great pleasure in her answers, for
she was a bright, intelligent girl, and although I saw many evidences of
regal dignity about her, yet her manner toward me was most natural and
unaffected, and I could not help but feel that she occupied a position
of importance among her own people.
Our conversation was suddenly interrupted, however, by a messenger from
the point, who came racing back at tremendous speed, carrying word from
Ga-va-go that the scouts were signaling that they had discovered a large
village, and that the warriors were to prepare to fight.
Immediately we moved up rapidly to Ga-va-go, and then we all advanced
toward the scout who could be seen upon a knoll far ahead. We were
cautioned to silence, and as we moved at a brisk canter over the soft,
pale lavender vegetation of the inner Moon, the feet of the Va-gas
giving forth no sound, the picture presented to my earthly eyes was
weird and mysterious in the extreme.
When we reached the scout, we learned that the village was situated just
beyond a low ridge not far distant, so Ga-va-go gave orders that the
women, the children, and the three prisoners should remain under a small
guard where we were until they had topped the ridge, when we were to
advance to a position where we might overlook the village, and if the
battle was against the No-vans we could retreat to a point which he
indicated to the warriors left to guard us. This was to be the
rendezvous, for following defeat the Va-gas warriors scatter in all
directions, thus preventing any considerable body of them being attacked
and destroyed by a larger body of the pursuing enemy.
As we stood there upon the knoll, watching Ga-va-go and his savage
warriors galloping swiftly toward the distant ridge, I could not but
wonder that the inhabitants of the village which they were about to
attack had not placed sentinels along the ridge to prevent just such a
surprise as this, but when I questioned one of the warriors who had been
left to guard us, he said that not all the Va-gas tribes were accustomed
to posting sentinels when they felt themselves reasonably safe from
attack. It had always been Ga-va-go’s custom, however, and to it they
attributed his supremacy among the other Va-gas tribes over a large
territory.
“After a tribe has made a few successful raids and returned victorious,
they are filled with pride,” the warrior explained to me, “and presently
they begin to think that no one dares to attack them and then they grow
careless, and little by little the custom of posting sentinels drops
into disuse. The very fact that they have no sentinels indicates that
they are a large, powerful and successful tribe. We shall feed well for
a long time.”
The very idea of the thought that was passing through his mind, was
repellent in the extreme, and I fairly shuddered when I contemplated the
callousness with which this creature spoke of the coming orgy, in which
he hoped to devour flesh of his own kind.
Presently we saw our force disappear beyond the ridge, and then we too,
advanced, and as we moved forward there came suddenly to us, from the
distance the fierce and savage war cry of the No-vans and a moment later
it was answered by another no less terrible, rising from the village
beyond the ridge. Our guards hastened us then, to greater speed, until,
at a full run, we mounted the steep slope of the ridge and halted upon
its crest.
Below us lay a broad valley, and in the center a long, beautiful lake,
the opposite shore of which was clothed in forest while that nearest us
was open and park-like, dotted here and there with beautiful trees, and
in this open space we descried a large village.
The ferocity of the scene below us was almost indescribable. The No-vans
warriors were circling the village at a rapid run, attempting to keep
the enemy in a compact mass within, where it would present a better
target for their spears. Already the ground was dotted with corpses.
There were no wounded, for whenever one fell the nearest to him whether
friend or foe cut his throat, since the victors would devour them all
without partiality. The females and the young had taken refuge in the
huts, from the doorways of which they watched the progress of the
battle. The defenders attempted repeatedly to break through the circling
No-vans. The warrior with whom I had been talking told me that if they
were successful the females and the young would follow them through the
break scattering in all directions, while their warriors attempted to
encircle the No-vans. It was almost immediately evident that the
advantage lay with the force that succeeded in placing this swift-moving
circle about its enemy, and keeping the enemy within it until they had
been dispatched, for those in the racing circle presented a poor target,
while the compact mass of warriors milling in the center could scarce be
missed.
Following several unsuccessful attempts to break through the ring of
savage foemen the defenders suddenly formed another smaller ring within,
and moving in the opposite direction to the No-vans, raced in a rapid
circle. No longer did they cast spears at the enemy, but contented
themselves with leaping and bounding at a rapid gait. At first it seemed
to me that they had lost their heads with terror, but at last I realized
that they were executing a strategic maneuver which demonstrated both
cunning and high discipline. In the earlier stages of the battle each
side had depended for its weapons upon those hurled by the opposing
force, but now the defenders hurled no weapons, and it became apparent
that the No-vans would soon no longer have spears to cast at them. The
defenders were also lessening their casualties by moving in a rapid
circle in a direction opposite to that taken by the attackers, but it
must have required high courage and considerable discipline to achieve
this result since it is difficult in the extreme to compel men to
present themselves continuously as living targets for a foe while they
themselves are permitted to inflict no injury upon the enemy.
Ga-va-go apparently was familiar with the ruse, for suddenly he gave a
loud cry which was evidently a command. Instantaneously, his entire
force wheeled in their tracks and raced in the opposite direction
paralleling the defenders of the village, and immediately thereafter
cast their remaining spears at comparatively easy targets.
The defenders, who were of the tribe called Lu-thans, wheeled instantly
to reverse the direction of their flight. Those wounded in the sudden
onslaught stumbled and fell, tripping and impeding the others, with the
result that for an instant they were a tangled mass, without order or
formation. Then it was that Ga-va-go and his No-vans leaped in upon them
with their short, wicked sword-daggers. At once the battle resolved
itself into a ferocious and bloody hand-to-hand conflict, in which
daggers and teeth and three-toed paws each did their share to inflict
injury upon an antagonist. In their efforts to escape a blow, or to
place themselves in an advantageous position, many of the combatants
leaped high into the air, sometimes between thirty and forty feet. Their
shrieks and howls were continuous and piercing. Corpses lay piled so
thick as to impede the movements of the warriors, and the ground was
slippery with blood, yet on and on they fought, until it seemed that not
a single one would be left alive.
“It is almost over,” remarked the warrior at my side. “See, there are
two or three No-vans now attacking each Lu-than.”
It was true, and I saw that the battle could last but a short time. As a
matter of fact it ended almost immediately, the remaining Lu-thans
suddenly attempting to break away and scatter in different directions.
Some of them succeeded in escaping, possibly twenty but I am sure that
there were not more than that, and the rest fell.
Ga-va-go and his warriors did not pursue the few who had escaped,
evidently considering that it was not worth the effort, since there were
not enough of them to menace the village, and there was already plenty
of meat lying fresh and warm upon the ground.
We were summoned now, and as we filed down into the village, great was
the rejoicing of our females and young.
Guards were placed over the women and children of the defeated Lu-thans,
and then at a signal from Ga-va-go, the No-vans fell upon the spoils of
war. It was a revolting spectacle, as mothers devoured their sons, and
wives, their husbands. I do not care to dwell upon it.
When the victors had eaten their fill, the prisoners were brought forth
under heavy guard, and divided by the Va-gas between the surviving
No-vans warriors. There was no favoritism shown in the distribution of
the prisoners, except that Ga-va-go was given first choice, and received
also those that remained after as nearly equal a distribution as
possible had been made. I had expected that the male children would be
killed, but they were not, being inducted into the tribe upon an equal
footing with those that had been born into it.
Being capable of no sentiments of either affection or loyalty, it is
immaterial to these creatures to what tribe they belong, but once
inducted into a tribe, the instinct of self-preservation holds them to
it, since they would be immediately slain by the members of any other
tribe.
I learned shortly after this engagement that Ga-va-go had lost fully
half his warriors, and that this was one of the most important battles
that the tribe had ever fought. The spoils, however, had been rich, for
they had taken over ten thousand women and fully fifty thousand young,
and great quantities of weapons, harness, and apparel.
The flesh that they could not eat was wrapped up and buried, and I was
told that it would remain in excellent condition almost indefinitely.