Chapter 13: Happy Valley

“Towahg!” Chet marveled; “you little devil! It’s you who has been following us all this time!”

“I wish he hadn’t been so bashful,” Harkness added. “If he had come out and showed himself he would have saved us a lot of trouble.” But Harkness stepped forward and patted the black shoulder that quivered with joy beneath his touch. “Good boy, Towahg!” he told the grinning ape-man.

Monkey-like, Towahg had to imitate, and this time he gave a reproduction of his own acts. He wriggled toward the entrance of the passage, peered around the edge, and seemed to see something that made him draw back. Then he fitted an arrow to his bow and springing upright, let it fly.

So realistic was the performance that Chet actually expected to see another enemy transfixed, but the squat figure of Towahg was doing a dance of victory beside the prostrate figure of the first and only victim. Chet reached out with one long arm and swung the exulting savage about. He heard Herr Kreiss expressing his opinion in accents of disgust.

“Ugly little beast!” Kreiss was saying. “And murderous!”

There was no time to lose: the sound of scrambling bodies was coming nearer from the dark pit beyond. Yet, even then, Chet found an instant to defend the black.

“Damned lucky for us that he is a murderer!” he told Kreiss. Then to Towahg:

“Listen, you little imp of hell! You don’t know more than ten words, but get this!”

Chet was standing where the Earth-light struck upon him; he pointed into the dark where the sounds of pursuit grew loud, and he shook his head and screwed his features into an expression that was supposed to depict fear. “No! No!” he said.

He dragged the savage forward and pointed cautiously to the milling horde below, and repeated, “No! No!” Then he included them all in a wave of his hand and pointed back and out into the night. And Towahg’s unlovely features were again twisted into what was for him a smile, as he grunted some unintelligible syllables and motioned them to follow.

It had taken but an instant. Towahg was scurrying in advance; he sped like a shadow of a passing cloud, and behind him the others followed, crouching low in the shelter of the deep-cut step. No figures were below them at the rear of the pyramid, and Chet reached for one of Diane’s arms, while Harkness took the other. Between them they held her from falling while they followed the dark blur that was Towahg leaping noiselessly down the long slope.

No time for caution now. The savage ahead of them leaped silently; his flying feet hardly disturbed a stone. But beneath them, Chet felt a small landslide of rubble that came with them in their flight. And above the noise of their going came a sound that sped them on--the rising shout of wonder from the unseen multitude in front, and a chorus of animal cries from the pyramid’s top.

Chet saw a blot of black figures at the top of the slope just as they felt firm ground beneath their feet. They followed where Towahg led in a swift race across the open arena toward the great steps at the rear. Black and white in strongly contrasting bands, the rock reared itself in a barrier that, to Chet, seemed hopelessly unsurmountable. He felt that they had come to the end of their tether.

“Trapped!” he told himself, and wondered at Towahg’s leading them into such a cul-de-sac, even while he knew that retreat in other directions was cut off. The pursuit was gaining on them; savages from beyond the pyramid had sighted them now in the full light of Earth, and their yelping cry came mingled with hoarse growls as the full pack took the trail. Ahead of them, Towahg, reaching the base of the first white step, was dancing with excitement beside a narrow cleft in the rocks. He led the way through the small passage. And Harkness, bringing up the rear, took the detonite pistol in his hand.

“One shell! We’ll have to waste it!” he said, and raised the weapon.

Its own explosion was slight, but the sound of the bursting cartridge when its grain of detonite struck the rocks made a thunderous noise as it echoed between the narrow walls.

“That will check the pursuit,” Harkness exulted; “that will make them stop and think it over.”

It was another hour before Towahg slackened his pace. He had led them through jungle that to them seemed impassable; had shown them the hidden trails and warned them against spiked plants whose darts were needle sharp. At last he led them to a splashing stream where they followed him through the trackless water for a mile or more.

The mountain with the white scar was their beacon. Harkness pointed it out to their guide and made him understand that that was where they would go.

And, when night was gone, and the first rays of the rising sun made a quickly changing kaleidoscope of the colorful east, they came at last to a barren height. Behind them was a maze of valleys and rolling hills; beyond these was a place of smoke, where red fires shone pale in the early light, and set off at one side was a shape whose cylindrical outline could be plainly seen. It caught the first light of the sun to reflect it in sparkling lines and glittering points, and every reflection came back to them tinged with pale green, by which they knew that the gas was still there.

Chet turned from a prospect that could only be depressing. His muscles were heavy with the poisons of utter fatigue; the others must be the same, but for the present they were safe, and they could find some position that they could defend. Towahg would be a valuable ally. And now their lives were ahead of them--lives of loneliness, of exile.

Harkness, too, had been staring back toward that ship that was their only link with their lost world; his eyes met Chet’s in an exchange of glances that showed how similar were their thoughts. And then, at sound of a glad laugh from Diane, their looks of despair gave place to something more like shame, and Chet shifted his own eyes quickly away.

“It is beautiful, Walter,” Diane was saying: “the lovely valley, the lake, the three mountain peaks like sentinels. It is marvelous. And we will be happy there, all of us, I know it ... Happy Valley. There--I’ve named it! Do you like the name, Walter?”

And Chet saw Harkness’ reply in a quick pressure of his hand on one of Diane’s. And he knew why Walt looked suddenly away without giving her an answer in words.

“Happy Valley!” Diane of all the four had shown the ability to rise above desperate physical weariness, above a despondent mood, to dare look ahead instead of backward and to find hope for happiness in the prospect.

Off at one side, Chet saw Kreiss; the scientist’s weariness was forgotten while he ran like a puppy after a bird, in pursuit of a floating butterfly that drifted like a wind-blown flower. And Harkness, unspeaking, was still clinging to Diane’s firm hand ... Yes, thought Chet, there was happiness to be found here. For himself, it would be more than a little lonesome. But, he reflected, what happiness was there in any place or thing more than the happiness we put there for ourselves? ... Happy Valley--and why not? He dared to meet the girl’s eyes now, and the smile on his lips spread to his own eyes, as he echoed his thoughts: