Authors: George England
"Here, Frumnos!" cried Stern.
"Yes, master?"
"Run quickly! Fetch the strongest bow in the colony and many arrows!"
"I go, master!"
Once more the man departed, running.
"Gad! If I only had my oxygen-containing bullets ready!" thought
Stern, his mind reverting to an unfinished experiment down there in
his laboratory in the Rapids power-house. "
They
would turn the
trick, sure enough! They'd burst and rain fire everywhere. But they
aren't ready yet; and even if they were, nobody could venture down
there now!"
For already, plainly visible on the farther edge of the canyon, scores
and hundreds of the hideous little beast-men were beginning to swarm.
Their cries, despite the contrary stiff wind, carried across the
river; and here and there a dart broke against the cliff.
Already a few of the Anthropoids were beginning to scramble down the
opposite wall of stone.
"Men!" cried Allan commandingly, "not one of those creatures must ever
reach this terrace! Take good aim. Waste no single shot. Every bullet
must do its work!"
Choosing six of the best marksmen, he stationed them along the parapet
with rifles. The firing began at once.
Irregularly the shots barked from the line of sharpshooters; and the
little stabs of smoke, drifting out across the river, blent in a thin
blue haze. Every moment or two, one of the Horde would writhe, scream,
fall—or hang there twitching, to the cliff, with terrible, wild
yells.
Stern greeted the return of Frumuos with eagerness.
"Here!" he exclaimed, scattering the arrows among half a dozen men.
"Bind these fireballs fast to the arrowheads!"
He dealt out cord. In a moment the task was done.
"Sivad!" he called a man by name. "You, the best bowman of all! Here
quickly!"
Even as Sivad fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was
about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to
cringe and leap aside.
Down, leaping, ricochetting, thundering, hurtled a great boulder,
spurning the cliff-face with a tremendous uproar.
It struck the parapet like a thirteen-inch shell, smashed out two
yards of wall, and vanished in the depths. And after it, sliding,
rattling and bouncing down, followed a rain of pebbles, fragments and
detritus.
"Those two above—they're attacking!" shouted Stern. "Quick—after
them!
You, you, you!
"
He told off half a dozen men with rifles and revolvers.
"Quick, before they can hide! Look out for their darts!
Kill! Kill!
"
The detachment started up the path at a run, eager for the hunt.
Stern set the flaring torch to the first fireball. It burst into
bright flame.
"Shoot, Sivad! Shoot!" he commanded. "Shoot high, shoot far. Plant
your arrow there in the dry undergrowth where the wind whips the
jungle! Shoot and fail not!"
The stout bowman drew his arrow to the head, back, back till the flame
licked his left hand.
"Zing-g-g-g-g!"
The humming bowspring sang in harmony with the zooning arrow. A swift
blue streak split the air, high above the river. In a quick trajectory
it leaped.
It vanished in the wind-swept forest. Almost before it had
disappeared, Sivad had snatched another flaming arrow and had planted
it farther down stream.
One by one, till all were gone, the marksman sowed the seed of
conflagration. And all the while, from the rifles along the parapet,
death went spitting at the forefront of invasion.
Another boulder fell from aloft, this time working havoc; for as one
of the riflemen sprang to dodge, it struck a shoulder of limestone,
bounded, and took him fair on the back.
His cry was smashed clean out; he and the stone, together, plumbed the
depths.
But, as though to echo it, shots began to clatter up above. Then all
at once they ceased; and a cheer floated away across the canyon.
"
They're
done, those two up there, damn them!" shouted Stern. "And
look, men, look! The fire takes!
The woods begin to burn!
"
True! Already in three places, coils of greasy smoke were beginning to
writhe upward, as the resinous, dry undergrowth blossomed into red
bouquets of flame.
Now another fire burst out; then the two remaining ones. From six
centers the conflagration was already swiftly spreading.
Smoke-clouds began to drift downwind; and from the forest depths arose
not only harsh cries from the panic-stricken Horde, but also beast and
bird-calls as the startled fauna sought to flee this new, red terror.
Shouts and cheers of triumph burst from the little band of defenders
on the terrace as the sweeping wind, flailing the flame through the
sun-dried underbrush, whirled it crackling aloft in a quick-leaping
storm of fire.
But Stern was silent as he watched the fierce and sudden onset of the
conflagration. Between narrowed lids, as though calculating a grave
problem, he observed the crazed birds taking sudden flight, launching
into air and whirling drunkenly hither and yon with harsh cries for
their last brief bit of life.
He listened to the animal calls in the forest and to the strange
crashings of the underwood as the creatures broke cover and in vain
sought safety.
Mingled with these sounds were others—yells, shrieks, and
gibberings—the tumult of the perishing Horde.
Swiftly the fire spread to right and left, even as it ate northward
from the river.
The mass of Anthropoids inevitably found themselves trapped; their
slouching, awkward figures could here or there be seen in some clear
space, running wildly. Then, with a gust of flame, that space, too,
vanished, and all was one red glare.
The riflemen, meanwhile, were steadily potting such of the little
demons as still were crawling up or down the cliffside opposite.
Surely, relentlessly, they shot the invaders down. And, even as Stern
watched, the enemy melted and vanished before his eyes.
Allan was thinking.
"What may this not result in?" he wondered as he observed the swift
and angry leap of the forest-fire to northward. "It may ravage
thousands of square miles before rain puts an end to it. It may
devastate the whole country. A change in the wind may even drive it
back on us, across the river, sweeping all before it. This may mean
ruin!"
He paused a moment, then said aloud:
"Ruin, perhaps. Yes; but the alternative was death! There was no other
way!"
Now none of the attackers remained save a few feebly twitching,
writhing bodies caught on some protuberance of rock. Here, there, one
of these fell, and like the rest was borne away down stream.
Through the heated air already verberated a strange roar as the
forest-fire leaped up the opposite hillside in one clear lick of
incandescence. This roar hummed through the heavens and trembled over
the long reaches of the river.
The fire jumped a little valley and took the second hill, burning as
clear as any furnace, with a swift onward, upward slant as the wind
fanned it forward through the dry brush and among the crowded palms.
Now and then, with a muffled explosion, a sap-filled palm burst. Here,
or yonder, some brighter flare showed where the fire had run at one
clear leap right to the fronded top of a fern-tree.
Fire-brands and dry-kye, caught up by the swirl, spiralled through the
thick air and fell far in advance of the main fire-army, each outpost
colonizing into swift destruction.
Already the nearer portion of the opposite cliff-edge was barren and
smoking, swept clean of life as a broom might sweep an ant-hill.
Tourbillons of dense smoke obscured the sky.
The air flew thick with brands, live coals and flaring bits of bark,
all whirling aloft on the breath of the fire-demon. Showers of burning
jewels were sown broadcast by the resistless wind.
Stern, unspeakably saddened in spite of victory by this wholesale
destruction of forest, fruit and game, turned away from the
magnificent, the terrifying spectacle.
He left his riflemen staring at it, amazed and awed to silence by the
splendor of the flame-tempest, which they watched through their
eye-shields in absolute astonishment.
Back to Cliff Villa he returned, his step heavy and his heart like
lead. In a few brief hours, how great, how terrible, how devastating
the changes that had come upon Settlement Cliffs!
Attack, destruction, pestilence and flame had all worked their will
there; and many a dream, a plan, a hope now lay in ashes, even like
those smoldering cinder-piles across the river—those pyres that
marked the death-field of the hateful, venomous, inhuman Horde!
Numb with exhaustion and emotions, he staggered up the path, knocked,
and was admitted to his home by the old nurse.
He heard the crying of his son, vigorously protesting against some
infant grievance, and his tired heart yearned with strong father-love.
"A hard world, boy!" thought he. "A hard fight, all the way through.
God grant, before you come to take the burden and the shock, I may
have been able to lighten both for you?"
The old woman touched his arm.
"O, master! Is the fighting past?"
"It is past and done, Gesafam.
That
enemy, at least, will never come
again! But tell me, what causes the boy to cry?"
"He is hungered, master. And I—I do not know the way to milk the
strange animal!"
Despite his exhaustion, pain and dour forebodings, Allan had to smile
a second.
"That's one thing you've got to learn, old mother!" he exclaimed.
"I'll milk presently. But not just yet!"
For first of all he must see Beatrice again. The boy must cry a bit,
till he had seen her!
To the bed he hastened, and beside it fell on his knees. His eager
eyes devoured the girl's face; his trembling hand sought her brow.
Then a glad cry broke from his lips.
Her face no longer burned with fever, and her pulse was slower now. A
profuse and saving perspiration told him the crisis had been passed.
"Thank God! Thank God!" he breathed from his inmost soul. In his arms
he caught her. He drew her to his breast.
And even in that hour of confusion and distress he knew the greatest
joy of life was his.
The week that followed was one of terrible labor, vigil and
responsibility for Stern. Not yet recovered from his wounds nor fully
rested from his flight before the Horde—now forever happily wiped
out—the man nevertheless plunged with untiring energy into the
stupendous tasks before him.
He was at once the life, the brain, the inspiration of the colony.
Without him all must have perished. In the hollow of his hand he held
them, every one; and he alone it was who wrought some measure of
reconstruction in the smitten settlement.
Once Beatrice was out of danger, he turned his attention to the
others. He administered his treatment and regimen with a strong hand,
and allowed no opposition. Under his direction a little cemetery grew
in the palisade—a mournful sight for this early stage in the
reconstruction of the world.
Here the Folk, according to their own custom, marked the graves with
totem emblems as down in the Abyss, and at night they wailed and
chanted there under the bright or misty moon; and day by day the
number of graves increased till more than twenty crowned the cliff.
The two Anthropoids were not buried, however, but were thrown into the
river from the place where they had been shot down while rolling rocks
over the edge. They vanished in a tumbling, eddying swirl, misshapen
and hideous to the last.
With his accustomed energy he set his men to work repairing the damage
as well as possible, rearranging the living quarters, and bringing
order out of chaos. Beta was now able to sit up a little. Allan
decided she must have had a touch of brain-fever.
But in his thankfulness at her recovery he took no great thought as to
the nature of the disease.
"Thank God, you're on the road to full recovery now, dear!" he said to
her on the tenth day as they sat together in the sun before the home
cave. "A mighty close call for you—and for the boy, too! Without that
good old goat what mightn't have happened? She'll be a privileged
character for life in these diggings."
Beta laughed, and with a thin hand stroked his hair as he bent over
her.
"Do you remember those funny goat-pictures Powers used to draw, a
thousand years ago?" she asked. "Well, he ought to be here now to make
a sketch of you handing one to our kiddums? But—it was no joke, after
all, was it? It was life and death for him!"
He kissed her tenderly, and for a while they said nothing. Then he
asked:
"You're really feeling much—much better to-day?"
"Awfully much! Why, I'm nearly well again! In a day or two I'll be at
work, just as though nothing had happened at all."
"No, no; you must rest a while. Just so you're better, that's enough
for me."
Beatrice was really gaining fast. The fever had at least left her with
an insatiable appetite.
Allan decided she was now well enough again to nurse the baby. So he
and the famous goat were mutually spared many a
mauvais quart
d'heure
.
Tallying up matters and things on the evening of the twelfth day, as
they sat once more on the terrace in front of Cliff Villa, he
inventoried the situation thus:
1—Twenty-six of the Folk are dead.
2—H'yemba is disposed of—praise be!
3—Forty still survive—twenty-eight men, nine women, three children.
Of these forty, thirty-three are sound.
4—The Pauillac is lost.
5—The bridge is destroyed, and eight of the caves are gone.
6—The entire forest area to the northward, as far as the eye can
reach, is totally devastated.
7—The Horde is wiped out.