THE MOON MAID ESCAPES
After occupying the new village, Orthis and I were separated, he being
assigned a hut close to Ga-va-go, while I was placed in another section
of the village. If I could have been said to have been on good terms
with any of the terrible creatures of the tribe, it was with the woman
who had taught me the language of the Va-gas, and it was from her that I
learned why Orthis was treated with such marked distinction by Ga-va-go,
whom, it seemed, he had promised to lead to the land of our origin,
where, he had assured the savage chieftain, he would find flesh in
abundance.
Nah-ee-lah was confined in still another part of the village, and I only
saw her occasionally, for it was evident that Ga-va-go wished to keep
the prisoners separated. Upon one occasion when I met her at the shore
of the lake I asked her why it was that they had not slain and eaten
her, and she told me that when Ga-va-go had discovered her identity, and
that her father was a Jemadar, a ruler of a great city, he had sent
messengers with an offer to return Nah-ee-lah for a ransom of one
hundred young women of the city of Laythe.
“Do you think your father will send the ransom?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she replied. “I do not see how they are going to get a
message to him, for ordinarily, my race kills the Va-gas on sight. They
may succeed, however, but even so, it is possible that my father will
not send the ransom. I would not wish him to. The daughters of my
father’s people are as dear to them, as am I to him. It would be wrong
to give a hundred of the daughters of Laythe in return for one, even
though she be the daughter of the Jemadar.”
We had drunk, and were returning toward our huts when, wishing to
prolong our conversation and to be with this pleasant companion while I
might, I suggested that we walk farther into the woods and gather fruit.
Nah-ee-lah signified her willingness, and together we strolled out of
the village into the denser woods at its rear, where we found a
particularly delicious fruit growing in abundance. I gathered some and
offered it to her, but she refused, thanking me, saying that she had but
just eaten.
“Do they bring the fruit to you,” I asked, “or do you have to come and
gather it yourself?”
“What fruit I eat I gather,” she replied, “but they bring me flesh. It
is of that which I have just eaten, and so I do not care for fruit now.”
“Flesh!” I exclaimed. “What kind of flesh?”
“The flesh of the Va-gas, of course,” she replied. “What other flesh
might a U-ga eat?”
I fear that I ill-concealed my surprise and disgust at the thought that
the beautiful Nah-ee-lah ate of the flesh of the Va-gas.
“You, too, eat of the flesh of these creatures?” I demanded.
“Why not?” she asked. “You eat flesh, do you not, in your own country.
You have told me that you raise beasts solely for their flesh.”
“Yes,” I replied, “that is true, but we eat only the flesh of lower
orders; we do not eat the flesh of humans.”
“You mean that you do not eat the flesh of your own species,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied, “that is what I mean.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “The Va-gas are not of the same species as the
U-ga. They are a lower order, just as are the creatures whose flesh you
eat in your own country. You have told me of beef, and of mutton, and of
pork, which you have described as creatures that run about on four legs,
like the Va-gas. What is the difference, then, between the eating of the
flesh of pork and beef or mutton, and the eating of Va-gas, who are low
creatures also?”
“But they have human faces!” I cried, “and a spoken language.”
“You had better learn to eat them,” she said, “otherwise you will eat no
flesh in Va-nah.”
The more I thought about it the more reason I saw in her point of view.
She was right. She was no more transgressing any natural law in eating
the flesh of the Va-gas than do we, eating the flesh of cattle. To her
the Va-gas were less than cattle. They were dangerous and hated enemies.
The more I analyzed the thing, the more it seemed to me that we humans
of the earth were more surely transgressing a natural law by devouring
our domestic animals, many of which we learned to love, than were the
U-ga of Va-nah in devouring the flesh of their four-footed foes, the
Va-gas. Upon our earthly farms we raise calves and sheep and little
pigs, and oftentimes we become greatly attached to individuals and they
to us. We gain their confidence, and they have implicit trust in us, and
yet, when they are of the right age, we slay and devour them. Presently
it did not seem either wrong or unnatural that Nah-ee-lah should eat the
flesh of the Va-gas, but as for myself, I could never do it, nor ever
did.
We had left the forest, and were returning to the village to our huts
when, near the large hut occupied by Ga-va-go, we came suddenly upon
Orthis. At the sight of us together he scowled.
“If I were you,” he said to me, “I would not associate with her too
much. It may arouse the displeasure of Ga-va-go.”
It was the first time that Orthis had spoken to me since we had occupied
this village. I did not like his tone or his manner.
“You will please to mind your own business, Orthis,” I said to him, and
continued on with Nah-ee-lah. I saw the man’s eyes narrow malignantly,
and then he turned, and entered the hut of Ga-va-go, the chief of the
No-vans.
Every time I went to the river, I had to pass in the vicinity of
Nah-ee-lah’s hut. It was a little out of my way, but I always made the
slight detour in the hope of meeting her, though I had never entered her
hut nor called for her, since she had never invited me and realizing her
position, I did not wish to intrude. I was of course ignorant of the
social customs of her people, and feared offending her accidentally.
It chanced that the next time that I walked down to the lake shore,
following our stroll in the woods, I made my usual detour that I might
pass by the hut of Nah-ee-lah. As I came near I heard voices, one of
which I recognized as that of Nah-ee-lah, and the other, a man’s voice.
The girl’s tones were angry and imperious.
“Leave my presence, creature!” were the first words that I could
distinguish, and then the man’s voice.
“Come,” he said, ingratiatingly. “Let us be friends. Come to my hut, and
you will be safe, for Ga-va-go is my friend.” The voice was the voice of
Orthis.
“Go!” she ordered him again. “I would as soon lie with Ga-va-go as with
you.”
“Know then,” cried Orthis, angrily, “that you will go, whether you wish
it or not, for Ga-va-go has given you to me. Come!” and then he must
have seized her, for I heard her cry out, “How dare you lay hands upon
me, Nah-ee-lah, princess of Laythe!”
I was close beside the entrance to the hut now, and I did not wait to
hear any more, but thrusting the hanging aside entered. There they were,
in the center of the single room, Orthis struggling to drag the girl
toward the opening while she resisted and struck at him. Orthis’ back
was toward me and he did not know that there was another in the hut
until I had stepped up behind him and grasping him roughly by the
shoulder, had jerked him from the girl and swung him about facing me.
“You cad,” I said; “get out of here before I kick you out, and don’t
ever let me hear of you molesting this girl again.”
His eyes narrowed, and he looked at me with an ugly light in them.
“Since boyhood, you have cheated me out of all that I wished. You ruined
my life on earth, but now, conditions are reversed. The tables are
turned. Believe me, then, when I tell you that if you interfere with me
you sign your own death warrant. It is only by my favor that you live at
all. If I gave the word Ga-va-go would destroy you at once. Go then to
your hut and stop your meddling in the affairs of others—a habit that
you developed in a most flagrant degree on Earth, but which will avail
you nothing here within the Moon. The woman is mine. Ga-va-go has given
her to me. Even if her father should fail to send the ransom her life
shall be spared as long as I desire her. Your interference then can only
result in your death, and do her no good, for provided you are
successful in keeping me from her, you would be but condemning her to
death in the event that her father does not send the ransom, and
Ga-va-go has told me that there is little likelihood of that, since it
is scarcely possible that his messengers will be able to deliver
Ga-va-go’s demands to Sagroth.”
“You have heard him,” I said, turning to the girl. “What are your wishes
in the matter. Perhaps he speaks the truth.”
“I have no doubt but that he speaks the truth,” she replied, “but know,
strangers, that the honor of a princess of Laythe is dearer than her
life.”
“Very well, Orthis,” I said to the man. “You have heard her. Now get
out.”
He was almost white with anger, and for a moment I thought that he was
going to attack me, but he was ever a coward, and contenting himself
with giving me a venomous look, he walked from the hut without another
word.
I turned to Nah-ee-lah, after the hanging had dropped behind Orthis. “It
is too bad,” I said, “that with all your suffering at the hands of the
Va-gas, you should also be annoyed by one who is practically of your own
species.”
“Your kindness more than compensates,” she replied graciously. “You are
a brave man, and I am afraid that you are going to suffer for your
protection of me. This man is powerful. He has made wonderful promises
to Ga-va-go. He is going to teach him how to use the strange weapons
that you brought from your own world. The woman who brings me my meat
told me of all this, and that the tribe is much excited by the promises
that your friend has made to Ga-va-go. He will teach them to make the
weapons, such as you slew their warriors with, so that they will be
invincible, and may go abroad in Va-nah slaying all who oppose them and
even raiding the cities of the U-ga. He has told them that he will lead
them to the strange thing which brought you from your world to Va-nah,
and that there they will find other weapons, like those that you
carried, and having the noise which they make, and the things with which
they kill. All these he says they may have, and that later he will build
other things, such as brought you from your world to Va-nah, and he will
take Ga-va-go and all the No-vans to what you call Earth.”
“If there is any man in the universe who might do it, it is he,” I
replied, “but there is little likelihood that he can do it. He is merely
deceiving Ga-va-go in the hope of prolonging his own life, against the
possibility that an opportunity to escape will develop, in which event
he will return to our ship and our friends. He is a bad man though,
Nah-ee-lah, and you must be careful of him. There is a vacant hut near
yours, and I will come and live in it. There is no use in asking
Ga-va-go, for if he is friendly with Orthis, he will not permit me to
make the change. If you ever need me, call ‘Julian’ as loud as you can,
and I will come.”
“You are very good,” she said. “You are like the better men of Laythe,
the high nobles of the court of the Jemadar, Sagroth, my father. They
too are honorable men, to whom a woman may look for protection, but
there are no others in all Va-nah since the Kalkars arose thousands of
kelds ago, and destroyed the power of the nobles and the Jemadars, and
all the civilization that was Va-nah’s. Only in Laythe, have we
preserved a semblance of the old order. I wish I might take you to
Laythe, for there you would be safe and happy. You are a brave man. It
is strange that you are not married.”
I was upon the point of making some reply, when the hangings at the
doorway parted, and a No-van warrior entered. Behind him were three
others. They were walking erect, with drawn spears.
“Here he is,” said the leader, and then, addressing me, “Come!”
“Why?” I asked. “What do you want of me?”
“Is it for you to question,” he demanded, “when Ga-va-go commands?”
“He has sent for me?” I asked.
“Come!” repeated the leader, and an instant later they had hooked their
spears about my arms and neck and none too gently they dragged me from
the hut. I had something of a presentiment that this was to be the end.
At the doorway I half turned to glance back at the girl. She was
standing wide-eyed and tense, watching them drag me away.
“Good-bye—Julian,” she said. “We shall never meet again for there is
none to carry our souls to a new incarnation.”
“We are not dead yet,” I called back, “and remember if you need me call
me,” and then the hanging dropped behind us, and she was shut off from
my vision.
They did not take me to my own hut, but to another, not far distant from
Nah-ee-lah’s, and there they bound my hands and feet with strips of
leather and threw me upon the ground. Afterwards they left me, dropping
the hanging before the entrance. I did not think that they would eat me,
for Orthis had joined with me in explaining to Ga-va-go and the others
that our flesh was poisonous, and though they may have questioned the
veracity of our statements, nevertheless I was quite sure that they
would not risk the chance of our having told the truth.
The Va-gas obtain their leather by curing the hides of their dead. The
better portions they use for their trappings and harness. The other
portions they cut into thin strips, which they use in lieu of rope. Most
of this is very strong, but some of it is not, especially that which is
improperly cured.
The warriors who had been sent to seize me had scarcely left the hut
before I commenced working with my bonds in an attempt to loosen or
break them. I exerted all my strength in the effort, until I became sure
that those which held my hands were stretching. The effort, however, was
very tiring, and I had to stop often and rest. I do not know how long I
worked at them, but it must have been a very long time before I became
convinced that however much they gave they were not going to break. Just
what I intended to do with my freedom I do not know, since there was
little or no chance that I might escape from the village. Perpetual
daylight has its disadvantages, and this was one of them, that there was
no concealing nocturnal darkness during which I might sneak away from
the village unseen.
As I lay resting after my exertions, I suddenly became aware of a
strange, moaning sound from without, and then the hut shook, and I
realized that another storm had come. Soon after I heard the beat of
rain drops on the roof, and then a staggering, deafening peal of lunar
thunder. As the storm waxed in violence, I could imagine the terror of
the No-vans, nor even in my plight could I resist the desire to smile at
their discomfiture. I knew that they must all be hiding in their huts,
and again I renewed my efforts to break the bonds at my wrists, but all
to no avail; and then suddenly, above the moaning of the wind and the
beating of the rain, there came distinctly to my ears in a clear, full
voice, a single word: “Julian!”
“Nah-ee-lah,” I thought. “She needs me. What are they doing to her?”
There flashed quickly before my mental vision a dozen scenes, in each of
which I saw the divine figure of the Moon Maid, the victim of some
fiendish brutality. Now she was being devoured by Ga-va-go; now some of
the females were tearing her to pieces, and again the warriors were
piercing that beautiful skin with their cruel spears; or it was Orthis,
come to claim Ga-va-go’s gift. It was this last thought, I think, which
turned me almost mad, giving to my muscles the strength of a dozen men.
I have always been accounted a powerful man, but in the instant that
that sweet voice came across the storm to find me, and my imagination
pictured her in the clutches of Orthis, something within moved me to
Herculean efforts far transcending aught that I had previously achieved.
As though they had been cotton twine now, the leather bonds at my wrists
snapped asunder, and an instant later those at my ankles were torn away,
and I was upon my feet. I sprang to the door and into the open, where I
found myself in a maelstrom of wind and rain. In two bounds I had
cleared the space between the hut in which I had been confined and that
occupied by Nah-ee-lah, had torn the hanging aside, and had sprung into
the interior; and there I beheld the materialization of my last
vision—there was Orthis, one arm about the slender body of the girl
pinning her arms close to her side, while his other hand was at her
throat, choking her and pressing her slowly backward across his knees
toward the ground.
He was facing the door this time, and saw me enter, and as he realized
who it was, he hurled the girl roughly from him and rose to meet me. For
once in his life he seemed to know no fear, and I think that what with
his passion for the girl, and the hatred he felt for me, and the rage
that my interference must have engendered, he was momentarily insane,
for he suddenly leaped upon me like a madman, and for an instant I came
near going down beneath his blows—but only for an instant, and then I
caught him heavily upon the chin with my left fist, and again, full in
the face with my right, and though he was a splendid boxer, he was
helpless in my hands. Neither of us had a weapon, or one of us certainly
would have been killed in short order. As it was I tried to kill him
with my bare fists, and at last, when he had fallen for the dozenth
time, and I had picked him up and held him upon his feet and struck him
repeatedly again and again, he no longer moved I was sure that he was
dead, and it was with a feeling of relief and of satisfaction in a duty
well performed that I looked down upon his lifeless body. Then I turned
to Nah-ee-lah.
“Come,” I said, “there has been given to us this chance for escape.
Never again may such a fortuitous combination of circumstances arise.
The Va-gas will be hiding in their huts, crouching in terror of the
storm. I do not know whither we may fly, but wherever it be, we can be
in no greater danger than we are here.”
She shuddered a little at the thought of going out into the terrors of
the storm. Though not so fearful of it as the ignorant Va-gas, she still
feared the wrath of the elements, as do all the inhabitants of Va-nah,
but she did not hesitate, and as I stretched out a hand, she placed one
of hers within it, and together we stepped out into the swirling rain
and wind.