Authors: George England
He broke into a strange, limping run across the slight and shaking
bridge; and as he ran he called to her, words of cheer and greeting,
words of encouragement and love.
But when, having penetrated the palisaded area and stumbled down the
terraces, he reached her side, he stopped short, shaking, speechless,
with wide and terror-stricken eyes.
"Beatrice! Beta! My God, what's—
what's happened here?
" he
stammered, kneeling beside her, raising her in his weakened arms,
covering her pallid face with kisses, chafing her throat, her temples,
her hands.
The girl gave no sign of returning consciousness. Allan stared about
him, sensing a great and devastating change since his departure, but
as yet unable to comprehend its nature.
Giddy himself with loss of blood and terrible fatigues, he hardly more
than half saw what lay before him; yet he knew catastrophe had
befallen Settlement Cliffs.
The river now foamed through strange new obstructions. A whole section
of the cliff was gone. No sign of life at all was to be seen anywhere
down the terraces or paths.
None of the Folk, their blinking eyes shielded by their mica glasses
from the morning sun, were drying fish or fruit at the frames.
The nets hung brown, and stiff, and dry; they should, at this hour,
have been limp and wet, from the night's fishing. The life of the
colony, he knew, had suddenly and for some incomprehensible reason
stopped, as a watch stops when the spring is broken.
And, worse than all, here Beatrice now lay in his arms, stricken by
some strange malady. He could not know the cause—the sleepless
nights, the terrible toil, the shattering nervous strain of
catastrophe, of nursing, of the swift rebellion.
But he saw plainly now, the girl was burning with fever. And, raising
his face to heaven, he uttered a cry, half a groan, half a sob—the
cry of a soul racked too long upon the torture-wheel of fate.
"But—but where's the boy?" he asked himself, striving to recover his
self-control; trying to understand, to act, to save. "What's happened
here? God knows! An earthquake? Disaster, at any rate! Beatrice! Oh,
my Beta! Speak to me!"
Unable to solve any of the terrible problems now beating in upon him,
he raised her still higher in his arms.
Loudly he shouted for help down the terrace, calling on his Folk to
show themselves; to come to him and to obey.
But though the shattered cliff rang with his commands, no one
appeared. In all seeming as deserted and as void of human life as on
the first day he and Beta had set foot there, the canyon brooded under
the morning sun, and for all answer rose only the foaming tumult of
the rapids far below.
"Merciful Heavens, I've got to do
something!
" cried Allan,
forgetting his own lacerations and his pain, in this supreme crisis.
"She—she's sick! She's got a fever! I've got to put her to bed
anyhow! After that we'll see!"
With a strength he knew not lay now in his wasted arms, he lifted her
bodily and carried her to the door of Cliff Villa, their home among
the massive buttresses of rock.
But, to his vast astonishment and terror, he found the door refused to
open. It was fast barred inside.
Even from his own house he found himself shut out, an exile and a
stranger!
Loudly he shouted for admission, savagely beat upon the planks, all to
no purpose. There came no sound from within, no answering word or
sign.
Eagerly listening for perhaps the cry of his child, he heard nothing.
A tomblike silence brooded there, as in all the stricken colony.
Then Allan, fired with a burning fury, laid the girl down again, and
seizing a great boulder from the top of the parapet that guarded the
terraced walk, dashed it against the door. The planks groaned and
quivered, but held.
Recoiling, exhausted by even this single effort, the disheveled,
wounded man stared with haggard eyes at the barrier.
The very strength he had put into that door to guard his treasures,
his wife and his son, now defied him. And a curse, bitter as death,
burst from his trembling lips.
But now he heard a sound, a word, a phrase or two of incoherent
speech.
Whirling, he saw the girl's mouth move. In her delirium she was
speaking.
He knelt again beside her, cradled her in his arms, kissed and
cherished her—and he heard broken, disjointed words—words that
filled him with passionate rage and overpowering woe.
"So many dead—so many!—And so many dying.—
You
, H'yemba! You
beast! Let me go!—Oh, when the master comes!"
Allan understood at last. His mind, now clear, despite the maddening
torments of the past week, grasped the situation in a kind of
supersensitive clairvoyance.
As by a lightning-flash on a dark night, so now the blackness of his
wonder, of this mystery, all stood instantly illumined. He understood.
"What incredible fiendishness!" he exclaimed, quite slowly, as though
unable to imagine it in human bounds. "At a time of disaster and of
death, such as has smitten the colony—what hellish villainy!"
He said no more, but in his eyes burned the fire that meant death,
instant and without reprieve.
First he looked to his automatic; but, alas, not one cartridge
remained either in its magazine or in the pouches of his belt. The
fouled and blackened barrel told something of the terrible story of
the past few days.
"Gone, all gone," he muttered; but, with sudden inspiration, bent over
the girl.
"Ah! Ammunition again!"
Quickly he reloaded from her belts. One belt he buckled round his
waist. Then, pistol in hand, he thought swiftly.
Thus his mind ran: "The first thing to do is look out for Beatrice,
and make her comfortable—find out what the matter is with her, and
give treatment. I need fresh water, but I daren't go down to the river
for it and leave her here. At any minute H'yemba may appear. And when
he does, I must see him first.
"Evidently the thing most necessary is to gain access to our home. How
can it be locked, inside, when Beatrice is here? Heaven only knows!
There may be enemies in there at this minute. H'yemba may be there—"
Anguish pierced his soul at thought of his son now possibly in the
smith's power.
"By God!" he cried, "something has got to be done, and quick!"
His rage was growing by leaps and bounds.
He advanced to the door, and putting the muzzle of his automatic
almost on the lock, shattered it with six heavy bullets.
Again he dashed the boulder against the door. It groaned and gave.
Reloading ere he ventured in, he now set his shoulder to the door and
forced it slowly open, with the pistol always ready in his right hand.
Keenly his eyes sought out the darkened corners of the room. Here,
there they pierced, striving to determine whether any ambushed foe
were lying there in wait for him.
"Surrender!" he cried loudly in the Merucaan tongue. "If there be any
here who war with me, surrender!
At the first sign of fight, you
die!
"
No answer.
Still leaving the girl beside the broken door till he should feel
positive there was no peril—and always filled with a vast wonder how
the door could have been locked from within—Allan advanced slowly,
cautiously, into their home.
He was cool now—cool and strong again. The frightful perils and
exposures of the week past seemed to have fallen from him like an
outworn mantle.
He ignored his pain and weakness as though such things were not. And,
with index on trigger, eyes watchful and keen, he scouted down the
cave-dwelling.
Suddenly he stopped.
"Who's there?" he challenged loudly.
At the left of the room, not far from the big fireplace, he had
perceived a dim, vague figure, prone upon the floor.
"
Answer, or I shoot!
"
But the figure remained motionless. Allan realized there was no fight
in it. Still cautiously, however, he advanced.
Now he touched the figure with his foot, now bent above it and peered
down.
"Old Gesafam! Heaven above! Wounded! What does this mean?"
Starting back, he stared in horror at the old woman, stunned and
motionless, with the blood coagulating along an ugly cut on her
forehead.
Then, as though a prescience had swept his being, he sprang to the
bed.
"My son! My boy! Where are you?" he shouted hoarsely.
With a shaking hand he flung down the bedclothes of finely woven palm
fiber.
"My boy! My boy!"
The bed was empty. His son had disappeared.
Blinded with staggering grief and terror, stunned, stricken,
all but annihilated, the man recoiled.
Then, with a cry, he sprang to the bed again, and now in a very
passion of eagerness explored it. His trembling hands dragged all the
bedding off and threw it broadcast. By the dim light he peered with
wide and terror-smitten eyes.
"My boy!" he choked. "
My boy!
"
But beyond all manner of doubt the boy had been stolen.
Unable to understand, or think, or plan, Allan stood there, his face
ghastly, his heart quivering within him.
What could have happened? How and why? If the door had been securely
locked and the old nurse been with the child, how could the kidnapper
have borne him away?
What? How? Why?
More, ever more, questions crowded the man's brain, all equally
without answer.
But now, he dimly realized, was no time for solving problems. The
minute demanded swift and drastic action. He must find, must save, his
son! After that other riddles could he unraveled.
"H'yemba!" he cried hoarsely. "This is H'yemba's work! Revenge and
hate have driven him to rebel again. To try to seize Beatrice! To
steal my son! At this time of peril and affliction, above all others!
H'yemba! The smith must die!"
But first he realized he must get Beatrice into safety.
In haste he ran to the door, picked up the girl and carried her to the
bed. Here he disposed her at ease, covered her with the bedding, and
bathed her face and hands with water from the cooling-jar.
The old nurse he laid upon the broad couch by the fire and likewise
tended. He saw now she had been struck with a stone ax, a glancing
blow, severe, but not necessarily fatal.
"Probably trying to defend the boy!" thought he. "Brave heart!
Faithful even unto death—if death be your reward!"
Leaving her, he returned to his wife.
Now, he well understood, he had no time for emotion. There must be no
false move. Even at the expense of a little time, he must plan the
campaign with skill and execute it with relentless energy.
He alone now stood for power, rule, order, law, in this disintegrated
community—this colony racked with disaster, anarchy and death.
Upon him alone now depended its whole fate and future, and, with it,
the fate and future of the world.
"Merciful Lord, what a situation!" he whispered. "At home, disruption
and savagery. Outside, the Horde—the Horde now pressing onward after
me!"
He sat down beside the bed and forced himself to think. Weak as he was
and wounded with a spear-thrust in the lower leg as well as a jagged
cut across the breast, he felt that he might still keep strength
enough for a few hours more of toil.
Of a sudden he realized an over-powering thirst. Till now he had not
felt it. He arose, drank deeply from the jar, then—something cooler
and more calm—once more returned to Beatrice.
"The first thing is to help her," he said. "No use in losing my wits
and rushing out unprepared to find the boy. If H'yemba has stolen him
it's certain the boy is hidden beyond my present power in some far
recess of the inter-communicating rabbit-warren of caves below there
in the cliff.
"I feel positive no bodily harm will be done the child. H'yemba will
hold him for power over me. He will try to exact terms—even to
leadership in the colony, even to possession of Beatrice. And the
penalty of refusal may be the boy's death—"
He shuddered profoundly, and with both wasted hands covered his face.
For a moment madness sought to possess him.
He felt a wild desire to shout imprecations, to rush out, fling
himself against the cave-door of H'yemba and riddle it with
bullets—but presently calm returned again. For in Stern's nature lay
nothing of hysteria. Reason and calm judgment dominated. And before he
acted he always reckoned every pro and con.
"It must be a battle of wits as well as force," thought he. "A little
time will decide all that. For now Beatrice demands my first care and
thought!"
Now he examined the girl once more. Closing the door and lighting the
bronze lamp, he carefully studied the sick woman, noting her symptoms,
pulse and respiration.
"What to do?" he asked himself. "What means to tale?"
He arose and rummaged the stores for drugs. Above all, he must break
the fever. He therefore prepared and administered a powerful
febrifuge, covered the girl with all the available bedding, and
determined, if possible, to make her sweat. This done, he found no
further means at hand and now turned his attention once more to
Gesafam.
Her wound he bathed and bandaged and, having given her a stiff drink
of brandy, poured between resisting teeth which he had to separate
with his knife-blade, he presently perceived some signs of returning
consciousness.
But, though he questioned the old woman and tried desperately to make
her answer, he could get no coherent information.
Only the name of H'yemba and some few disconnected mutterings of
terror rewarded him. He knew now, however, with positive certainty
that the smith was responsible for the kidnapping of his son.
"And that," said he, "means I must seek him out at once. All I ask is
just one sight of him. One sight, one bullet—and the score is paid!"