Somebody gasped. A little girl began to cry but was quickly hushed up.
Amra answered, faint with joy.
"Alan! It can't be _you_!"
"I am not thy father's ghost!" he replied, and wondered at the same
time how he could manage to inject any levity at all into the midst of
this desperate situation. He was always doing it. Perhaps it was not
the product of a true humor but more like the giggle of a person who
was embarrassed or under some other stress, more the result of hysteria
than anything else, his particular type of safety valve.
"Here's what I'm going to do," he said. "Listen carefully, then repeat
it after me so I'll know you have it down."
She had to hear it only once to give it back to him letter-perfect. He
nodded. "Good girl. I'm going now."
"Alan!"
"Yes?" he replied impatiently.
"If this doesn't work ... if anything should happen to you ... or
me ... remember that I love you."
He sighed. Even in the midst of this the eternal feminine emerged.
"I love you, too. But that hasn't got much to do with this situation."
Before she could answer and waste more valuable time he slid away,
crawling on all fours around the corner of the hut. When he was where
one more pace would have brought him into view of the guard and the
old crones, he stopped. All this while he'd been counting the seconds.
As soon as he'd clocked five minutes--which he thought would never
pass--he rose and stepped swiftly around the corner, spear held in
front of him.
The guard was drinking out of his mug with his eyes closed and his
throat exposed. He fell over with Green's spear plunged through his
windpipe, just above the breastbone. The mug fell onto his lap and
gushed its amber and foam over his legs.
Green withdrew the blade and whirled, ready to run upon anybody who
started to flee. But the old women were huddled on their knees around a
large board on which they were rolling some flour, cackling and talking
shrilly. The blind boy continued tapping, his open eyes glaring into
the fire. Only one saw Green, a boy of about three. Thumb in mouth,
he stared with great round eyes at this stranger. But he was either
too horrified to utter a sound or else he did not understand what had
happened and was waiting to find out his elders' reactions before he
offered his own.
Green lifted one finger to his lips in the universal sign of silence,
then turned and lifted up the bar over the door. Amra rushed out and
took the guard's spear from her husband. The dead man's knife went
to Inzax and his other knife to Aga, a tall, muscular woman who was
captain of the female deck hands and who had once killed a sailor while
defending her somewhat dubious honor.
At the same time, the chattering of the hags stopped. Green whirled
around, and the silence was broken by shrieks. Frantically, the hags
tried to scramble up from their stiffened knees and run away. But Green
and the women were upon them before they could take more than a few
steps. Not one of them reached the forest. It was grim work, one in
which the Effenycan woman took fierce joy.
Without wasting a look on the poor old carcasses, Green rounded up
the children and the blind boy and put them in the prisoners' hut. He
had to hold Aga back from slaughtering them. Amra, he was pleased to
see, had made no motion to help them in their intended butchery. She,
understanding his brief look, replied, "I could not kill a child, even
the spawn of these fiends. It would be like stabbing Paxi."
Green saw one of the women holding his daughter. He ran to her, took
Paxi out of her arms and kissed the baby. Soon, Amra's ten-year-old
child by the sculptor, came shyly and stood by his side, waiting to be
noticed. He kissed her, too. "You're getting to be a big girl, Soon,"
he said. "Do you suppose you could tag along behind your mother and
carry Paxi for her? She has to carry her spear."
The girl, a big-eyed, redheaded beauty, nodded and took the baby.
Green eyed the long houses with the idea of setting them afire. He
decided not to when it became apparent that the wind would carry sparks
to the hut in which the savages' children were. Moreover, though a fire
would undoubtedly create consternation among the roisterers at the
wreck and keep them busy for some time, it would also cause them to
start tracking down the refugees just that much sooner. Besides, there
was the possibility of setting fire to the forest, wet though it was.
He didn't want to destroy his only hiding-place.
He directed some women to go into the long house and load themselves
with as much food and weapons as they could carry. In a few minutes he
had the party ready to leave.
"We'll take this path that leads out of the village away from the path
that goes to the wreck," he said. "Let's hope it goes to the other edge
of the island, where we may find some small 'rollers on which we can
escape. I presume these savages have some kind of sailing craft."
This path was as narrow and winding as the other one. It worked in the
general direction of the western shore, and the savages were on the
eastern shore.
Their way at first led upward, sometimes through passes formed by
two large rocks. Several times they had to skirt little lakes, catch
basins for rain. Once a fish flopped out of the water, scaring them.
The island was fairly self-sufficient, what with its fish, rabbits,
squirrels, wild fowl, pigs and various vegetables and fruit. He
estimated that if the village was in the center of the island, then the
mass should have a surface area of about one and a half square miles.
Rough though the land was and thickly covered with grass, the place
should offer cover for one refugee.
For one, yes, but not for six women and eight children.
18
After much puffing and panting, muttered encouragements to each other,
and occasional cursing, they finally reached the summit of the tallest
hill. Abruptly, they found themselves facing a clearing which ran
around its crown. Directly ahead of them was a forest of totem poles,
all gleaming palely in the moonlight. Beyond it was the dark yawning of
a large cave.
Green walked out from the shadows of the branches to take a closer
look. When he came back he said, "There's a little hut by the side of
the cave. I looked in the window. An old woman's asleep in it. But her
cats are wide-awake and likely to wake her up."
"All those totem poles bear the heads of cats," said Aga. "This place
must be their holy of holies. It's probably taboo to all but the old
priestess."
"Maybe so," replied Green. "But they must hold religious services of
some sort here. There's a big pile of human skulls on the other side of
the cave mouth, and also a stake covered with bloodstains.
"We can do two things. Go on down the other side of this hill, jump off
onto the plain and take our chances there. Or else hide inside the cave
and hope that because it's taboo nobody will explore it to look for us."
"It seems to me that's the first place they'd look into," said Aga.
"Not if we don't wake the old woman. Then if the savages come along
later and ask her if anybody's come by they'll get no for an answer."
"What about the cats?"
Green shrugged his shoulders. "We'll have to take that chance. Perhaps,
if once we get by them and into the cave, they may quiet down."
He was referring to their caterwauling, which was beginning to sound
dreadful.
"No," said Aga, "that noise will be a signal to the islanders. They'll
know something's up."
"Well," replied Green, "I don't know what you intend doing, but I'm
going into that cave. I'm too tired to run any further."
"So are we," affirmed the other women. "We've reached the end of our
strength."
There was a silence, and into that silence came a voice, a man's.