Chapter 5: the Smiting Thing

Silently we looked at each other, and silently we passed out of the courtyard. The dread was heavy upon me. The twilight was stealing upon the close-clustered peaks. Another hour, and their amethyst-and-purple mantles would drop upon them; snowfields and glaciers sparkle out in irised beauty; nightfall.

As I gazed upon them I wondered to what secret place within their brooding immensities the little metal mysteries had fled. And to what myriads, it might be, of their kind? And these hidden hordes--of what shapes were they? Of what powers? Small like these, or--or--

Quick on the screen of my mind flashed two pictures, side by side--the little four-rayed print in the great dust of the crumbling ruin and its colossal twin on the breast of the poppied valley.

I turned aside, crept through the shattered portal and looked over the haunted hollow.

Unbelieving, I rubbed my eyes; then leaped to the very brim of the bowl.

A lark had risen from the roof of one of the shattered heaps and had flown caroling up into the shadowy sky.

A flock of the little willow warblers flung themselves across the valley, scolding and gossiping; a hare sat upright in the middle of the ancient roadway.

The valley itself lay serenely under the ambering light, smiling, peaceful--emptied of horror!

I dropped over the side, walked cautiously down the road up which but an hour or so before we had struggled so desperately; paced farther and farther with an increasing confidence and a growing wonder.

Gone was that soul of loneliness; vanished the whirlpool of despair that had striven to drag us down to death.

The bowl was nothing but a quiet, smiling lovely little hollow in the hills. I looked back. Even the ruins had lost their sinister shape; were time-worn, crumbling piles--nothing more.

I saw Ruth and Drake run out upon the ledge and beckon me; made my way back to them, running.

“It’s all right,” I shouted. “The place is all right.”

I stumbled up the side; joined them.

“It’s empty,” I cried. “Get Martin and Chiu-Ming quick! While the way’s open--”

A rifle-shot rang out above us; another and another. From the portal scampered Chiu-Ming, his robe tucked up about his knees.

“They come!” he gasped. “They come!”

There was a flashing of spears high up the winding mountain path. Down it was pouring an avalanche of men. I caught the glint of helmets and corselets. Those in the van were mounted, galloping two abreast upon sure-footed mountain ponies. Their short swords, lifted high, flickered.

After the horsemen swarmed foot soldiers, a forest of shining points and dully gleaming pikes above them. Clearly to us came their battlecries.

Again Ventnor’s rifle cracked. One of the foremost riders went down; another stumbled over him, fell. The rush was checked for an instant, milling upon the road.

“Dick,” I cried, “rush Ruth over to the tunnel mouth. We’ll follow. We can hold them there. I’ll get Martin. Chiu-Ming, after the pony, quick.”

I pushed the two over the rim of the hollow. Side by side the Chinaman and I ran back through the gateway. I pointed to the animal and rushed back into the fortress.

“Quick, Mart!” I shouted up the shattered stairway. “We can get through the hollow. Ruth and Drake are on their way to the break we came through. Hurry!”

“All right. Just a minute,” he called.

I heard him empty his magazine with almost machine-gun quickness. There was a short pause, and down the broken steps he leaped, gray eyes blazing.

“The pony?” He ran beside me toward the portal. “All my ammunition is on him.”

“Chiu-Ming’s taking care of that,” I gasped.

We darted out of the gateway. A good five hundred yards away were Ruth and Drake, running straight to the green tunnel’s mouth. Between them and us was Chiu-Ming urging on the pony.

As we sped after him I looked back. The horsemen had recovered, were now a scant half-mile from where the road swept past the fortress. I saw that with their swords the horsemen bore great bows. A little cloud of arrows sparkled from them; fell far short.

“Don’t look back,” grunted Ventnor. “Stretch yourself, Walter. There’s a surprise coming. Hope to God I judged the time right.”

We turned off the ruined way; raced over the sward.

“If it looks as though--we can’t make it,” he panted, “YOU beat it after the rest. I’ll try to hold ‘em until you get into the tunnel. Never do for ‘em to get Ruth.”

“Right.” My own breathing was growing labored, “WE’LL hold them. Drake can take care of Ruth.”

“Good boy,” he said. “I wouldn’t have asked you. It probably means death.”

“Very well,” I gasped, irritated. “But why borrow trouble?”

He reached out, touched me.

“You’re right, Walter,” he grinned. “It does--seem--like carrying coals--to Newcastle.”

There was a thunderous booming behind us; a shattering crash. A cloud of smoke and dust hung over the northern end of the ruined fortress.

It lifted swiftly, and I saw that the whole side of the structure had fallen, littering the road with its fragments. Scattered prone among these were men and horses; others staggered, screaming. On the farther side of this stony dike our pursuers were held like rushing waters behind a sudden fallen tree.

“Timed to a second!” cried Ventnor. “Hold ‘em for a while. Fuses and dynamite. Blew out the whole side, right on ‘em, by the Lord!”

On we fled. Chiu-Ming was now well in advance; Ruth and Dick less than half a mile from the opening of the green tunnel. I saw Drake stop, raise his rifle, empty it before him, and, holding Ruth by the hand, race back toward us.

Even as he turned, the vine-screened entrance through which we had come, through which we had thought lay safety, streamed other armored men. We were outflanked.

“To the fissure!” shouted Ventnor. Drake heard, for he changed his course to the crevice at whose mouth Ruth had said the--Little Things--had lain.

After him streaked Chiu-Ming, urging on the pony. Shouting out of the tunnel, down over the lip of the bowl, leaped the soldiers. We dropped upon our knees, sent shot after shot into them. They fell back, hesitated. We sprang up, sped on.

All too short was the check, but once more we held them--and again.

Now Ruth and Dick were a scant fifty yards from the crevice. I saw him stop, push her from him toward it. She shook her head.

Now Chiu-Ming was with them. Ruth sprang to the pony, lifted from its back a rifle. Then into the mass of their pursuers Drake and she poured a fusillade. They huddled, wavered, broke for cover.

“A chance!” gasped Ventnor.

Behind us was a wolflike yelping. The first pack had re-formed; had crossed the barricade the dynamite had made; was rushing upon us.

I ran as I had never known I could. Over us whined the bullets from the covering guns. Close were we now to the mouth of the fissure. If we could but reach it. Close, close were our pursuers, too--the arrows closer.

“No use!” said Ventnor. “We can’t make it. Meet ‘em from the front. Drop--and shoot.”

We threw ourselves down, facing them. There came a triumphant shouting. And in that strange sharpening of the senses that always goes hand in hand with deadly peril, that is indeed nature’s summoning of every reserve to meet that peril, my eyes took them in with photographic nicety--the linked mail, lacquered blue and scarlet, of the horsemen; brown, padded armor of the footmen; their bows and javelins and short bronze swords, their pikes and shields; and under their round helmets their cruel, bearded faces--white as our own where the black beards did not cover them; their fierce and mocking eyes.

The springs of ancient Persia’s long dead power, these. Men of Xerxes’s ruthless, world-conquering hordes; the lustful, ravening wolves of Darius whom Alexander scattered--in this world of ours twenty centuries beyond their time!

Swiftly, accurately, even as I scanned them, we had been drilling into them. They advanced deliberately, heedless of their fallen. Their arrows had ceased to fly. I wondered why, for now we were well within their range. Had they orders to take us alive--at whatever cost to themselves?

“I’ve got only about ten cartridges left, Martin,” I told him.

“We’ve saved Ruth anyway,” he said. “Drake ought to be able to hold that hole in the wall. He’s got lots of ammunition on the pony. But they’ve got us.”

Another wild shouting; down swept the pack.

We leaped to our feet, sent our last bullets into them; stood ready, rifles clubbed to meet the rush. I heard Ruth scream--

What was the matter with the armored men? Why had they halted? What was it at which they were glaring over our heads? And why had the rifle fire of Ruth and Drake ceased so abruptly?

Simultaneously we turned.

Within the black background of the fissure stood a shape, an apparition, a woman--beautiful, awesome, incredible!

She was tall, standing there swathed from chin to feet in clinging veils of pale amber, she seemed taller even than tall Drake. Yet it was not her height that sent through me the thrill of awe, of half incredulous terror which, relaxing my grip, let my smoking rifle drop to earth; nor was it that about her proud head a cloud of shining tresses swirled and pennoned like a misty banner of woven copper flames--no, nor that through her veils her body gleamed faint radiance.