Chapter 25: The Fall Of H'yemba

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!”

He arose and, again making sure his automatic was in complete readiness, stood for a second in thought. Whatever he was now to do must be done quickly.

In a few hours, at the outside, he knew the vanguard of the pursuing Horde would enter the last valley on the other side of the canyon. By afternoon another battle might be on.

“Whatever happens, I must get my grip on the colony again at once!” he realized. “Such of the Folk as are still sound must be rallied. Otherwise nothing but annihilation awaits us all!”

But, even as he faced the exit of Cliff Villa, all at once the door was hurled violently open and a harsh, discordant cry of hatred and defiance burst into the cave.

Stern saw the detested figure of H’yemba standing there, loose-hung, powerful, barbaric, his eyes blinking evilly behind the mica screens that Allan himself had made for him.

With a cry Allan started forward.

“My son!” he gasped.

There, clutched in the smith’s left arm, lay the boy!

Allan heard his child crying as in pain, and rage swept every caution to the winds.